Putin says Ukraine’s Kursk offensive has failed

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday (2) that the Ukrainian offensive to invade the Kursk region had failed. According to the president, Kiev’s military operation was aimed at preventing Russia’s advances in Donbass.

“Their plan was to stop our offensive in key areas in Donbass. The result is known. People are experiencing and are going through hardships, especially in the Kursk region. But the main goal that the enemy had in mind, namely to stop our breakthrough in Donbass, he ultimately failed,” he said.

The Ukrainian army launched a surprise attack on Russia’s Kursk border region on August 6, and quickly claimed to have captured dozens of locations, including the small town of Sudja.

On Monday, Putin assured that he would “take care” of Ukrainian soldiers “who are trying to destabilize the situation in the border territories as a whole.” The message was delivered during a meeting with students from a school in the republic of Tuva, in Siberia.

He added that Moscow’s forces are already conquering “square kilometers” of territory in Donbass.

“This is not about advancing 200 or 300 meters further, we have not seen such paces of advance in Donbass for a long time. The Russian Armed Forces are beginning to control territories not 200 to 300 meters in size, but square kilometers in size,” the Russian leader stressed.

To the students, the president also explained that there are no countries hostile to Russia, but rather “hostile elites who want to weaken and divide it.”

“We have hostile elites in some countries who have been fighting against Russia for centuries to weaken our country because they think it is too big. They think a big country like Russia is a threat to them, so they try to slow down our development,” Putin said.