2024-08-15 19:01:34
The Kremlin claims it has stopped Zelenski’s offensive
Ukraine now controls about 1,000 sq km of Russian territory after Kiev’s surprise offensive in the Kursk region that began a week ago.
The operation of the Ukrainian military is the deepest advance into Russian territory since the beginning of the war in Ukraine. President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on Tuesday that Commander-in-Chief General Oleksandr Sirsky had reported on the scale of the captured territory in Kursk, and stressed that “our operation is a matter of Ukraine’s security – clearing the border of Russian troops.” The Ukrainian president emphasized that it was from its border regions that Russia launched at least 2,000 attacks on the Sumy region. From Kyiv assured that
the purpose of the offensive did not is annexation of lands
“Unlike Russia, Ukraine does not need foreign ownership. Ukraine does not want to annex territory from the Kursk region, but wants to protect the lives of its people,” noted a spokesman for the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry.
Zelensky announced that he had ordered a “humanitarian plan” to be drawn up for the controlled region, and Ukraine’s Security Service criticized Russia for wrongly accusing Kiev of war crimes.
In a conversation with Vladimir Putin, the governor of Kursk, Alexei Smirnov, said that Ukrainian forces have control over at least 28 settlements. Smirnov has accused Ukraine of using chemical weapons shells, but this cannot be confirmed at the moment.
In the Kursk region, 121,000 people have already left their homes, and another 59,000 are in the process of evacuation, local authorities announced. In the Belgorod region, there are about 11,000 evacuees.
On Tuesday, the Russian military responded to the Ukrainian offensive with missiles and drones, saying the offensive had been halted. “The enemy’s uncontrolled advance has already stopped,” said the commander of the Chechen “Ahmad” detachment, Major General Apti Alaudinov. According to him, the peculiar Ukrainian blitzkrieg has not succeeded. However, the fate of the city of Suja is unknown. There, Russia injects gas from Siberia, which passes through Ukraine and reaches Slovakia and other EU countries. Gazprom announced that supplies of blue fuel have not been stopped.
At the same time, “Financial Times” announced that the Russian Navy is
trained targeting of nuclear missiles to objects in Europe
Secret documents from 2008-2014 indicate that the training was conducted in case the Kremlin came into conflict with NATO. There are 32 targets in Europe, some of them in France, Germany, Estonia and Norway.