Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Rescue missionOleg Grishchenko, 61, a dual Russian and American citizen, was in Moscow when Ukrainian troops stormed across the border. When he realised they were headed for Sudzha, his 88-year-old mother’s hometown, he jumped into his Niva 4×4 and sped off, driving for eight hours and more than 600km.Arriving on the second day of the attack, he found residents fleeing in droves, along with Russian troops, who stopped him on the road to warn him of advancing Ukrainian forces.“They said: ‘The Ukrainians are there, why do you want to go there’,” he recalled. “I told them I needed to take my mother.”Oleg Grishchenko, a dual Russian and American citizen, now has a blackened arm after being injured in a drone strike © FTBurnt-out cars and bodies of Russian troops littered the roads as he entered the town. Smoke rose from buildings hit by artillery fire. He could hear explosions from the heavy fighting all around and see soldiers taking up firing positions from behind trees.And then everything went black.A drone had struck Grishchenko’s car near the fuel tank, sending it up in flames. Shrapnel from the blast pierced his right arm in three places. He was covered in blood.Shaken but able to walk, he moved on foot to the three-storey home he had purchased years earlier for his mother. She was there, terrified but unharmed. He boarded up the windows to hunker down.Soon, the Ukrainians came zooming up the street. And they had a particular interest in Grishchenko’s house. The upper windows provided panoramic views of the area – an ideal lookout.After explaining that he was a US citizen and wanted no part of the war, Grishchenko offered to help in any way possible in exchange for getting himself and his mother to safety.The Ukrainians used his home as a base for the next five days, treating the Grishchenkos “well”, he said. They even allowed him out at night to bring food to his neighbours barricaded in their homes.Then on August 15, Ukraine claimed full control of Sudzha.What next?Kyiv has been tight-lipped about its aims in Kursk. But they continue to pour resources into the battle, consolidate positions with fortifications and strikes on bridges, and have set up a military administration in Sudzha that even installed new signs on municipal buildings. It all signals that Ukraine plans to stick around.The Kursk operation has lifted the spirits of war-weary Ukrainians and their outmanned and outgunned army, a year after a much-anticipated counteroffensive failed to achieve its goals.“We’re witnessing the most tactically effective operation by the Ukrainian Armed Forces since the Kharkiv offensive in 2022,” said Franz-Stefan Gady, a military analyst and fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. “Ukrainian units have proven their mastery of rudimentary combined arms operations with sufficient preparation and against a surprised and relatively weak Russian enemy in the area.”They also demonstrated operational secrecy to catch their enemy off guard. Gady called it “a remarkable achievement from a military perspective”.But as the operation enters a fourth week, Kyiv faces many questions. Some analysts, Ukrainian lawmakers and soldiers worry that the situation could quickly change if Russia advances further into eastern Ukraine.Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy kept knowledge of his plans to a very small circle of people © Ukrainian government via ReutersSince May, Russian troops have captured more than 590 sq km of territory in eastern Kharkiv and Donetsk regions of Ukraine, making steady territorial gains. Moscow’s troops are now within 10km of Pokrovsk, a defensive stronghold and logistics hub. Local authorities have ordered the evacuation of families and children.One frustrated Ukrainian artillery brigade commander in eastern Ukraine told the FT on Monday that his troops had to start rationing shells for their cannons. The cause: redirecting ammunition for the operation in Russia’s Kursk region.Mariana Bezuhla, a Ukrainian lawmaker who has been one of only a few outspoken critics of Kyiv’s military decisions since the full-scale war began, expressed concern over the decision to divert men and ammunition from the vulnerable eastern front.“The Russians pass through unmanned fortifications,” she wrote on Facebook. “It looks as if we are handing over Donetsk region, the theatre of hostilities for the past 11 years of the war, the land on which thousands of Ukrainians laid down their lives for Ukraine.”Around a week into the battle for Sudzha, Grishchenko and his mother were given their house back as Ukraine’s forces pressed forward. He helped a group of Ukrainians whose vehicle had been destroyed in an attack to steal a luxury car from the garage of an abandoned house nearby. The owner, Grishchenko said, had supported the war. In return for his help, Ukrainian troops rotating back to Sumy gave him and his mother a ride to safety.The Grishchenkos were treated at the Sumy central hospital for the wounds suffered in the drone attack. He shared a room with four badly wounded Ukrainian soldiers, who wondered how the Russian-American had landed in a hospital bed beside them. “They thought I was a spy,” Grishchenko said, speaking at the hospital.He showed them his US passport and explained that he had seen war before, serving in the Soviet army in Afghanistan. He wanted nothing to do with another one. “This is a bad war,” he explained.
