Ukraine said Tuesday it has no interest in holding on to territory it seized in Russia's Kursk region in the long term, though control of the area could complicate Moscow's efforts to deploy more troops to the front lines in eastern Ukraine.
“Unlike Russia, Ukraine does not need other people’s property,” Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Georgiy Tykhy told reporters in Kyiv. “Ukraine is not interested in taking over the Kursk region, but we want to protect the lives of our people.”
Tykhy defended Ukraine's actions as “absolutely legitimate.”
“The sooner Russia agrees to restore a just peace … the sooner the attacks by Ukrainian defense forces on Russia will stop,” he told reporters, even though no peace talks are underway.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, “It should be emphasized that the operation in the Kursk region helps the front because it does not allow Russia to transfer additional units to the Donetsk region — which complicates its military logistics.”
Zelenskyy said Russia had used the Kursk region to launch more than 2,000 cross-border attacks on Ukrainian territory since June. He said Ukrainian forces had seized the area used to launch the attacks in a week-long offensive that has captured 1,000 square kilometers (320 square miles) of Russian territory.
Ukrainian forces have seized more than two dozen settlements in the biggest offensive by foreign troops on Russian soil since World War II. Russia said Tuesday it had repelled a new assault on Kursk, but more than 120,000 people had fled the area.
Alexander Bortnikov, head of Russia’s FSB security service, said in a statement that Ukraine had carried out the attack “with the collective support of the West.” Ukraine said it was imposing restrictions on movement in a 20-kilometer zone in the Sumy region along the border with the Kursk region, due to “increased intensity of hostilities” and “sabotage” activity.
Since launching its invasion in February 2022, Russia has seized territory in southern and eastern Ukraine and targeted Ukrainian cities with missile and drone strikes. But Ukraine’s attack on Kursk was its biggest cross-border action since Russia’s invasion and caught Moscow by surprise.
Russian President Vladimir Putin told top security officials on Monday that Ukraine's attack on Kursk was intended to “sow discord” and “destroy the unity and cohesion of Russian society.” He also said Ukraine wanted to “improve its negotiating position” for any future peace talks with Moscow. (lt/uh)
