Russia is maintaining the initiative at the operational level and conducting tactical offensives with the main focus on the Donetsk direction, Col. Kiviselg said in Friday's weekly Ministry of Defense press briefing.

"Russian operational pressure has gradually decreased during the week. While at the beginning of the week there were 185 attacks per day, today it has dropped to around 110 attacks per day," the EDF colonel explained.

Col. Kiviselg added that the Pokrovsk area is still bearing the brunt of the pressure, with a round a third of Russia's attacks currently taking place there.

Col. Kiviselg also pointed out that according to public sources, Russia has started offensive operations in Kursk Oblast. However, despite the partial redeployment of Russian troops to Kursk and the launch of a counter-offensive operation, Russia's offensive activity in the Donetsk direction has not significantly decreased.

"According to the latest information, a group of Russian Federation troops has been put together, formed mainly from more combat capable units, i.e. assault troops and naval units. Additional units have also been brought from the Russian-Ukrainian front in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson oblasts to the Kursk direction. These units started attacking Ukrainian positions on Tuesday," Col. Kiviselg said.

The Russian Federation has not made significant progress in Kursk, he explained.

"Out of 100 settlements, Ukrainian units have withdrawn from around ten. At the same time, we cannot yet confirm that this is the main offensive by Russian Federation units. It is possible that these are operations to identify more precise Ukrainian positions," said the EDF colonel.

According to Col. Kiviselg, the Ukrainians have managed to destroy some of the Russian army's equipment in Kursk. "Eleven tanks have been destroyed and Ukraine has also carried out localized counter-attacks in Kursk Oblast."

In the middle of the week, the Russian Federation also started more active offensive operations using armored vehicles In the direction of the Pokrovsk settlement and 40 kilometers to the south, in the Kurakhove area,  Col. Kiviselg said.

"The Ukrainians have succeeded in destroying or disabling around 50 percent of the combat equipment there. So, approximately 50 pieces of equipment were involved in the attack and the Ukrainians managed to destroy about 25 of them. The Russian Federation has been more active in that direction, but there has been no significant progress."

Col. Kiviselg said that over the past week, Russia has continued to launch combined ballistic and cruise missile attacks along with large-scale drone strikes against Ukraine's critical infrastructure and civilian targets across the country.

So far this month, there has also been an increase in the number of incidents in which Russian attack drones entered Belarusian territory. In one incident last weekend, an attack drone entered Latvia from Belarusian territory.

According to the EDF Colonel, Russia appears not to have discussed the movement of drones in Belarusian airspace with Belarus.

"It seems that for the Belarusian military leadership, too, the arrival of drones in their airspace was a surprising moment. The Russian Federation has not, it seems, discussed this activity with Belarus, because in September we have observed that Belarus has been scrambling fighters and helicopters, to try and shoot down these attack drones in Belarusian airspace," Col. Kiviselg said.

According to the EDF's Intelligence Center, a total of 21 Iranian Shahed drones were recorded in Belarus throughout July and August. In the first week of September alone, there were 20.

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