By Olena Harmash
KYIV (Reuters) -President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Friday Ukraine’s incursion into Russia’s border region of Kursk had produced the desired result of slowing Moscow’s advance on another front in the east of his country.
Zelenskiy told a conference in Kyiv that Russia’s counterattack in the Kursk region had also had no major successes – contradicting President Vladimir Putin’s accounts of Russian advances on both fronts.
Ukraine launched a surprise incursion in the Kursk region on Aug. 6, pushing into the Russian territory and claiming control over dozens of settlements.
“It gave the results that, frankly speaking, we counted on. In the Kharkiv region, the enemy was stopped. Their advance in the Donetsk region was slowed down, although it is very difficult there,” Zelenskiy said.
Zelenskiy said that Russia had about 40,000 troops on the Kursk front, and those had begun a counterattack. “So far we have seen no serious (Russian) success,” he added during his most comprehensive public comments on the situation since the launch of the Kursk operation.
Russia’s defence ministry said on Friday its troops had taken back 10 villages out of 100 that Kyiv had claimed.
Reuters has not been able to verify battlefield reports from either side independently.
More than 2-1/2 years since Russia’s full-scale invasion, the war is at a critical juncture, with Moscow regularly pounding Ukrainian infrastructure and cities as its troops try to push back Ukraine’s incursion and complete the capture of the whole of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region.
DIFFICULTIES ON THE EASTERN FRONT
Zelenskiy acknowledged that the situation near the logistics hub of Pokrovsk in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region remained difficult, though he said that had stabilised over the past week.
Ukraine’s General Staff reported on Friday that Russian forces focused their assaults near the town of Kurakhove, about 33 km (20 miles) south of Pokrovsk.
Russia’s Defence Ministry reported its forces had captured Dolynivka, lying between Pokrovsk and Kurakhove, the latest in a series of localities Moscow says it has seized in its slow advance through the Donetsk region.
Ukraine’s General Staff earlier this week mentioned Dolynivka as one of several localities gripped by fighting. But popular Ukrainian military blog DeepState said the village had fallen into Russian hands on Sept. 2.
Kyiv’s forces are stretched thin in the eastern Donetsk region but the military said they had repelled 64 assaults near Kurakhove in the past day, the most intense fighting there so far this month. An additional 36 Russian assaults had been repelled near Pokrovsk, it added.
Zelenskiy has earlier described the Kursk operation as a part of his broader “victory plan” he aims to present to U.S. President Joe Biden later this month.
“(The plan) can pave the way for a reliable peace – for the full implementation of the peace formula,” Zelenskiy said on Friday.
He declined to disclose the details of the plan but said it consisted of a small number of points.
“And all these points depend on Biden’s decision. Not Putin’s,” Zelenskiy added.
Ukraine has stepped up calls on its Western allies, in particular the United States, to allow long-range attacks into Russia, saying it is critical for its efforts to restrict Moscow’s ability to attack Ukraine.
Allies have so far been reluctant to permit such strikes, citing fears Moscow will treat this as an escalation.
(Additional reporting by Anastasiia Malenko and Yuliia Dysa; Editing by Andrew Heavens, Ron Popeski and Jonathan Oatis)
