Russia was planning to attack Ukraine from the Kursk region before Ukraine launched its cross-border incursion last month, Ukraine’s top military commander, Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskiy, said in an interview broadcast on September 5, after Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed that the incursion has not affected Moscow’s special military operation.
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Syrsky said in an interview with CNN that he considers the operation in Kursk a success because it reduced the threat of an enemy attack.
"We prevented them from acting. We moved the fighting to the enemy's territory so that he could feel what we feel every day," he said.
According to Syrskiy, Moscow has transferred tens of thousands of troops to the Kursk region, including some of its best airborne assault units.
Syrskiy also admitted that Ukraine is under significant pressure in the Pokrovsk area, but he said that Ukrainian forces have so far succeeded in stopping the Russian advance there.
"Over the past six days, the enemy has not advanced a single meter in the Pokrovsk area. In other words, our strategy is working," he said.
Syrskiy said that the ability of Russian forces to maneuver and deploy reinforcements from other directions has been limited and "this weakening is undoubtedly felt in other areas."
In recent weeks, the front line in the Donetsk region has moved closer to the strategically significant city of Pokrovsk, which in the first two years of the full-scale war was deep behind the front line.
Since its surprise incursion into Kursk, Kyiv claims to have seized control of more than 1,200 square kilometers of Russian territory, while Russian forces have pushed ahead with their effort to capture Pokrovsk.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in an interview with U.S. broadcaster NBC this week that the aim of the incursion was to accrue Russian territory and troops for future exchanges, emphasizing that Ukraine does not need Russian territory.
"Our operation is aimed at restoring our territorial integrity. We capture Russian troops to replace them with Ukrainian [ones]," he said. "We tell them, you know, we need our military soldiers in exchange for Russian ones. The same attitude is to the territories. We don't need their land."
Putin, speaking on September 5 at the Eastern Eurasian Forum in Russia's Far Eastern city of Vladivostok, claimed that by sending troops into the Kursk region Ukraine had weakened its forces in its eastern Donbas region.
"The enemy's goal was to make us get nervous, mess around, move our troops from one site to another, and stop our offensive in key directions, first of all in the Donbas," Putin said. "Did the enemy manage to do so? No, it managed nothing."
Putin claimed that Russia's forces "stabilized the situation and started gradually pushing the enemy from the territories along the border." The move left Ukraine without the means to "contain our offensive" in eastern Ukraine, Putin said.
"To the contrary, by sending its sufficiently big and well-trained units to the border districts, the enemy weakened itself on key fronts, while our troops have expedited their offensive operations," he said.
Putin has previously called the Ukrainian incursion "a provocation" and publicly said it left Russia with no reason to negotiate with Kyiv. He backtracked from that position on September 5, saying that "we never refused to hold negotiations." However, he said in Vladivostok that any peace talks must take into account Moscow's long-standing conditions -- that parts of Ukraine occupied by Russian troops must remain under Moscow's control. Kyiv has rejected these conditions.
Putin also hinted in Vladivostok that when talking about possible talks, Kyiv must take into consideration the future losses it faces.
"It sometimes seems to me that those who now lead Ukraine are aliens or some sort of foreigners. As a matter of fact, they simply do not think, and I am serious about this. You know, [they have] such colossal losses. What can they do further, I do not understand," Putin said.
Putin's statements came as Russian forces targeted the capital of Ukraine, Kyiv, with more overnight drone strikes. The Ukrainian military said that several other regions, including the northern Chernihiv and northeastern Sumy regions, were targeted by Russian drones.
In the Sumy region, the government expanded the mandatory evacuation from five towns in two districts.
Sumy Governor Volodymyr Artyukh discussed evacuation measures during a meeting in Glukhiv, one of the areas where shelling has intensified.
In view of the destruction of infrastructure and housing, the regional authorities decided to expand the list of settlements for mandatory evacuation, he said. The order now includes Glukhiv, Esman, and Svesa in the Shostkinsky district, and Manukhivka and Ivanivka in the Konotopsky district.