Kremlin comments on Ukraine’s threat to ‘hold’ Russian territory
Kiev’s declaration that it wants to hang on to a small part of Russia’s Kursk Region shows Ukraine’s true face, Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov stated on Wednesday.
Ukrainian troops crossed the border in early August and have taken over several villages, while taking significant casualties in the process. Vladimir Zelensky has told the US outlet NBC News that Kiev “needs” the territory for its secret “victory plan.”
“The regime is showing its true nature,” President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman told the Russian outlet Life on the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok.
“They are going their own way,” said Peskov. “And we need to go our own way and complete the special military operation and achieve the objectives that were set.”
At the start of the operation in February 2022, Putin said its principal objectives were “demilitarization and denazification” of Ukraine, while ensuring that Kiev will not join NATO.
The Ukrainian incursion into Kursk Region has displaced around 10,000 Russians, including 2,700 children, according to the Russian government. Kiev had put together a task force from parts of six brigades, redeployed from all along the front, with the stated objective to relieve the pressure on the Donbass and get a bargaining chip in potential talks with Moscow.
The move appears to have backfired, as Russia ruled out any possibility of negotiation with “terrorists,” while pressing the attack in multiple theaters. Russian forces have made major advances towards Pokrovsk, a key junction in the Donbass, threatening to unravel the entire Ukrainian line in the near future.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian forces in Kursk have lost more than 9,300 troops and 700 armored vehicles, according to Russian Defense Ministry estimates.
