Ukraine has underlined that its Kursk breakthrough is intended to frustrate Russia’s attacks elsewhere. Meanwhile, Moscow says its forces have checked Kyiv’s efforts to expand the incursion.
Kyiv’s foreign ministry spokesman says Ukraine is not interested in occupying parts of the Kursk region it has seized since a cross-border breakthrough last week.
Ukrainian forces’ incursion into Kursk is the biggest attack by a foreign army on Russian soil since World War II.
Ukraine says its troops are in Russian territory to complicate Moscow’s troop and logistic supplies to the frontline elsewhere.
Russia says it has thwarted Ukrainian efforts to advance further into its territory, adding that Kyiv had carried out the attack “with the support of the collective West.”
Ukraine, however, says its forces continued to move further into Russian territory on .
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Ukraine had shown that it can take the initiative in war as it presses on with its military operation in Russia’s Kursk region.
“We have once again proved that in any situation, we Ukrainians are able to achieve our goals — we are able to protect our interests and our independence,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly address to the nation.
Lithuanian Defence Minister Laurynas says Russia is moving troops from its Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad to the southern Kursk region, the scene of Ukraine’s audacious cross-border incursion into Russia.
Kasciunas made his remarks in a meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv, footage posted on the Ukrainian leader’s Telegram account showed.
Kaliningrad, the most westerly point in Russia, is separated from Moscow’s ally Belarus by both Lithuania and Poland.
