Ukraine has defended its recent military incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, stating that the move is aimed at forcing Russia into negotiations on “fair” terms, while Moscow announced new advances in eastern Ukraine.
The incursion, which began last week, marked one of the most significant escalations in the conflict since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began two and a half years ago. Ukrainian forces launched a major counter-offensive, driving deep into Russian territory and causing over 120,000 people to flee.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, emphasized that Ukraine is not seeking to beg for negotiations but to compel Russia to negotiate on Ukraine’s terms. “We have absolutely no plans to beg: ‘Please, sit down to negotiate,’” Podolyak wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Instead, we have a proven, effective means of coercion. In addition to economic and diplomatic ones…we need to inflict significant tactical defeats on Russia.”
Podolyak highlighted the military action in the Kursk region as an example of using force to pressure Russia into a fair negotiation process. Ukraine has maintained that it will not enter into talks with Russia unless Russian troops withdraw from Ukrainian territory.
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin has stated that a ceasefire would only be possible if Kyiv withdraws from the four regions that Russia claims to have annexed—Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson—but only partially controls.
Ukraine has claimed control over more than 1,100 square kilometers of Russian territory in what is considered the largest attack on Russian soil by a foreign army since World War II. The attack has provided a significant morale boost for Ukraine, with many Ukrainians viewing it as a way of giving Russian civilians a taste of the suffering they have endured since February 2022.
Despite the incursion, the larger battles in Russian-occupied parts of eastern Ukraine continue. The Russian defense ministry announced yesterday that its troops had captured another village near the Ukrainian-held logistics hub of Pokrovsk. Sergiy Dobryak, the head of Pokrovsk’s military administration, urged civilians to evacuate as the enemy rapidly approached the city’s outskirts.
In response to the Ukrainian attack, the Russian-installed authorities in Donetsk reported that at least seven people were injured by a Ukrainian strike on a supermarket in the Russian-held city.
The situation has escalated tensions further, with an aide to Putin accusing NATO and Western special services of helping to plan Ukraine’s surprise attack on Russia’s Kursk region, a claim the West has denied. Despite these accusations, the United States and its allies have reiterated that they were not involved in the planning of the operation.
As the conflict continues to evolve, Russian officials have vowed that Ukraine’s incursion will not alter the course of the war, while Ukraine remains determined to leverage its military successes to secure a favorable outcome in any future negotiations.