kyiv, Ukraine — Ukraine’s air defenses shot down all 14 Russian drones fired in an overnight attack, the Ukrainian air force said Saturday. The air force said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app that the Shahed drones were downed over six Ukrainian regions in the south and center of the country.

Meanwhile, Russia’s foreign ministry said Ukraine had used Western rockets, likely U.S.-made HIMARS, to destroy a bridge over the Seym river in the Kursk region, killing volunteers trying to evacuate civilians.

“For the first time, the Kursk region was hit by Western-made rocket launchers, probably American HIMARS,” Maria Zakharova, spokesperson for the Russian foreign ministry, said late Friday on the Telegram messaging app.

“As a result of the attack on the bridge over the Seym River in the Glushkovo district, it was completely destroyed, and volunteers who were assisting the evacuated civilian population were killed.”

Ukrainian army chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said on Friday that Kyiv’s forces were advancing between 1 and 3 kilometers in some areas in the Kursk region, 11 days since beginning an incursion into Russia. Kyiv has claimed to have taken control of 82 settlements over an area of 1,150 square kilometers in the region since August 6.

Reuters could not independently verify either side’s battlefield accounts.

Russia has accused the West of supporting and encouraging Ukraine’s first ground offensive on Russian territory and said Kyiv’s “terrorist invasion” would not change the course of the war.

The United States, which has said it cannot allow Russian President Vladimir Putin to win the war he launched in February 2022, so far deems the surprise incursion a protective move that justifies the use of U.S. weaponry, officials in Washington said. 
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