Exclusive: Documents contain months of warnings about possible Ukrainian advance and also reveal concerns about morale

Russia’s military command had anticipated Ukraine’s incursion into its Kursk region and had been making plans to prevent it for several months, according to a cache of documents that the Ukrainian army said it had seized from abandoned Russian positions in the region.

The disclosure makes the disarray among Russian forces after Ukraine’s attack in early August all the more embarrassing. The documents, shared with the Guardian, also reveal Russian concerns about morale in the ranks in Kursk, which intensified after the suicide of a soldier at the front who had reportedly been in a “prolonged state of depression due to his service in the Russian army”.

Ukrainian drone attack causes large explosion at arsenal in Toropets, more than 300 miles north of Ukraine

A Ukrainian drone attack on a large Russian weapons depot caused a blast that was picked up by earthquake monitoring stations, in one of the biggest strikes on Moscow’s military arsenal since the war began.

Pro-Russian military bloggers said Ukraine struck an arsenal for the storage of missiles, ammunition and explosives in Toropets, a historic town more than 300 miles north of Ukraine and about 230 miles west of Moscow.