Dozens of towns conquered
Selenskyj: “Kursk is Putin’s end”
12.08.2024, 21:07
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The Ukrainian offensive in the Kursk region has been going on for a week – and for the Kremlin, the outcome is anything but positive. More than 130,000 people have had to leave their homes, dozens of villages have been taken over by the Ukrainians. President Selenskyj sees victory within reach.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky predicted Russia’s defeat in the Ukraine war with a historical comparison. “Today marks the 24th anniversary of the Kursk catastrophe,” said Zelensky, referring to the Russian nuclear submarine Kursk, which sank in the Barents Sea on August 12, 2000, just weeks after Vladimir Putin began his first term as president. “That was the symbolic beginning of his rule,” said Zelensky. Referring to the Ukrainian offensive in the Russian region of Kursk, Zelensky said that one could already see what Putin’s end would be: “Kursk is Putin’s end. The catastrophe of his war.”
According to Zelensky, Russia must be forced to make peace. In his speech, he said: “If Putin wants to fight so much, Russia must be forced to make peace.” The latest advance into Russian territory is a question of security for Ukraine. Territories have been conquered from which Russia has launched attacks.
According to its own statements, Ukraine now controls around 1,000 square kilometers of Russian territory. This is slightly more than the area of Berlin. Zelensky published a video on social media of a report by army chief Olexandr Syrsky on the offensive in Kursk Oblast. Its governor, Alexei Smirnov, had previously stated that Ukraine had advanced twelve kilometers and had brought 28 towns under its control.
More than 130,000 people evacuated
The well-known Ukrainian military Telegram channel “DeepState”, however, reported at least 44 “liberated” towns in the Kursk region. “The status of ten other towns is unknown,” it said. “This is an extremely conservative estimate.” An independent verification of the information is currently not possible.
Kursk is located in the north-east of Ukraine. Ukrainian troops unexpectedly crossed the border on August 6. According to Russian sources, around 120,000 people have now been evacuated from the Kursk region and another 11,000 from parts of the neighboring Belgorod region.
Heavy fighting in Donbass
At a meeting on the situation in the border region, Putin explained that the government in Kiev was trying to put itself in a better position for possible negotiations “with the help of its Western masters.” The most urgent task now was to drive the enemy out again. According to him, the Russian army has accelerated its advance along the remaining 1,000-kilometer-long front.
Indeed, Ukraine reported heavy fighting in the Donbass. Once again, the Russian armed forces attempted to break through the Ukrainian positions around Toretsk and Pokrovsk, as the General Staff in Kiev announced in its evening situation report. At Toretsk, the Russian ground troops were also supported by a dozen air strikes. Heavy fighting took place between Russian attackers and Ukrainian defenders around Pokrovsk. In total, around 25 advances by Russian units were registered during the day, the majority of which were repulsed.
The General Staff did not provide any detailed information on the status of the Ukrainian counteroffensive at Kursk. It only said that Russian artillery and fighter aircraft were attempting to attack positions of the Ukrainian armed forces near Sumy in the east of the country. The area around Sumy is considered a supply line and staging area for the offensive at Kursk.
After its invasion in February 2022, Russia currently controls about 18 percent of Ukraine, especially in the east of the country. In addition, there is the Crimean peninsula, which the government in Moscow unilaterally declared annexed in 2014. The Secretary of the Russian Security Council, Sergei Shoigu, said last week that Russia had conquered another 420 square kilometers since June 14.