Ukraine war latest: Russia launches new push in Kursk Oblast, Kyiv claims attack ‘thwarted’

Key developments on Oct. 11:
Russian forces launched a new counterattack against Ukraine’s left flank in Russia’s Kursk Oblast, several Russian and Ukrainian Telegram channels claimed on Oct. 10.
A Ukrainian official commented that the “Russian plan in Kursk Oblast has been thwarted so far” as Russian forces suffered losses.
Ukraine launched its cross-border incursion into Kursk Oblast in early August, claiming to initially seize some 1,300 square kilometers (500 square miles) but recently facing mounting pressure from growing Russian reinforcements.
“No details yet, but the Russian military suffered significant losses in equipment,” said Andrii Kovalenko, the head of the counter-disinformation department at Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council.
Parallel messages also appeared on Russian pro-war channels. The well-known pro-war Rybar channel wrote that Russian forces launched several attacks in the Korenevsky and Sudzhansky districts, in which Ukraine established its foothold.
“The advanced groups of Russian troops reached Zeleny Shliakh by the end of the day, which allows us to claim at least a partial breakthrough in the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ defenses,” Rybar claimed on Oct. 10.
Russia’s Defense Ministry alleged late on Oct. 10 that its forces had “penetrated” into the Ukrainian-held territory in Kursk Oblast and inflicted losses on manpower and equipment.
Later, on Oct. 11, DeepState reported that the situation in the area remains difficult, but Ukrainian forces are succeeding in stabilizing it. According to the channel, it was not yet possible to regain all the lost territory, but Russian forces suffered significant losses in the attack.
The Kyiv Independent could not verify all the claims.
Ukraine controls roughly 40-50% of the town of Toretsk while the rest has been captured by Russia, the city’s military administration head, Vasyl Chynchyk, said on Oct. 11.
Toretsk, a town some 35 kilometers (20 miles) north of occupied Donetsk, is one of the focal points of the Russian offensive in Donetsk Oblast, where Russian troops are steadily pushing back Ukrainian defenders step by step.
Speaking on air on national television, Chynchyk said that roughly 1,150 people remain in the ruined town. Roughly 70,000 residents lived in Toretsk before the full-scale invasion.
“We are making every effort to evacuate civilians… The security situation allows entering the town and evacuating the population only in certain periods when there is a lull in fighting or favorable weather conditions,” the official said.
The crowdsourced monitoring website DeepState indicates that settlements on the eastern outskirts of Toretsk – Pivnichne, Zalizne, Druzhba, and Pivdenne – are fully or almost completely in Russian hands.
President Volodymyr Zelensky arrived in Germany on Oct. 11, receiving new pledges of support from German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
Zelensky’s visit is part of a broader European tour during which he hopes to ramp up support for Ukraine and its five-step victory plan.
During a joint press conference, Scholz revealed that Germany had delivered a package of aid for Ukraine worth 600 million euros ($660 million). This included a fifth IRIS-T medium-range air defense system, armored vehicles, tanks, howitzers, ammunition, and drones.
“By the end of the year, with the support of partners — Belgium, Denmark, Norway — we will deliver another package worth 1.4 billion euros ($1.5 billion) to Ukraine,” Scholz said. It will include IRIS-T, Skynex, and Gepard anti-aircraft weaponry, as well as artillery, armored vehicles, drones, radars, and ammunition.
Separate boards were set up for the lethal and non-lethal procurement agencies, a big step towards compliance with NATO standards, Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said in a Facebook post on Oct. 11.
“We have finally established supervisory boards for the Defense Procurement Agency (DPA) and the Non-lethal Defense Rear Agency (DOT),” his post read.
In a shake-up of ministry personnel earlier this month, Minister Rustem Umerov reshuffled the cards by requesting the dismissal of three of his deputies amid a debate with NATO over plans to unify military procurement into one agency.
Umerov planned to merge the Defense Procurement Agency (DPA) and the State Rear Operator (DOT) into one agency but changed his mind after a NATO statement said that the two agencies should be kept separate and two separate supervisory boards should be established.
This process of creating the supervisory boards concluded today, Umerov said in his Facebook post.
The DPA, first established in August 2022, focuses solely on procuring lethal aid, while the DOT was formed to purchase non-lethal aid such as food and clothing.
Since the start of the week, Ukraine’s forces have repelled 29 Russian attacks in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts, Operational Command South said on Oct. 11.
“The defense forces of southern Ukraine in the Kherson Oblast repelled 29 assaults. During the past day, five assaults were recorded in the Kherson and two assaults in the Zaporizhzhia directions,” the command said in a statement.
Russia used 318 FPV drones, including 3 Lancet-type drones, and dropped 428 general-purpose bombs, Operational Command South said. Despite ongoing assaults, no gains were made.
The statement aligns with an earlier warning of Ukraine’s forces that Russia will aim for a breakthrough in the direction of Orikhiv and Mala Tokmachka in Zaporizhzhia Oblast in the coming days.
The new Russian push in the southern Zaporizhzhia Oblast comes as Moscow’s troops continue advancing in Ukraine’s east.
Kyiv announced the withdrawal from Vuhledar on Oct. 2, after Russian forces first swarmed the town’s flanks and then entered its urban area.