Zelensky’s comments are among the first in which he has publicly declared the invasion of Ukraine and come just hours after Ukrainian General Oleksandr Syrskyi provided an update on the Kursk operation, in which he said Ukrainian troops had captured approximately 400 square miles of Russian territory.
A Ukrainian tank team takes a break while piloting a Soviet-made T-72 tank in the Sumy region near the Russian border on August 12, 2024, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The head of the Ukrainian army, Oleksandr Syrsky, said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in a video published on August 12, 2024, shows that his troops now occupy about 1,000 square kilometers of Russian territory and continue their “offensive operations “. (Photo via ROMAN PILIPEY/AFP via Getty Images)
UKRAINE IS BRINGING WAR TO RUSSIA WITH A “MASSIVE” DRONE ATTACK ON MILITARY AND GOVERNMENT TARGETS
Moscow declared a federal state of emergency in Kursk last week as Ukrainian troops, tanks and drones invaded the border, prompting the evacuation of thousands of Russian civilians.
Zelenskyy said that since early June, Ukraine’s Sumy region, which borders Russia’s Kursk region, has come under intense attack with more than 2,000 drone, artillery and mortar shells introduced from Kursk alone.
“It is right to destroy Russian terrorists where they are and from where they launch their attacks,” said the Ukrainian president.
Reports emerged this week claiming that Ukrainian forces had begun digging trenches in the Kursk region, a sign that Kyiv intends to remain operational in Russia for the long term, a strategy that some see as a strategy to push Russian forces away from the front lines.
Fox News Digital could not verify whether Ukrainian troops have begun digging their own trenches, however, pro-Russian army bloggers reported Tuesday that Putin is doing everything he can to make sure that the fighting that has come to his country is not an integral component of the conflicto. de his protracted war with Ukraine.
An infographic titled “New Front in the Russian-Ukrainian War: Kursk” premiered in Ankara, Turkey, on August 8, 2024. On August 6, the Ukrainian military introduced a large-scale attack on the Kursk region in southern Russia, creating a new front. in the face of conflict. (Photo via Murat Usubali/Anadolu Getty Images)
Russian bloggers on Telegram claimed that Putin had appointed a new security official to oversee the end of Ukrainian operations in Kursk, a former bodyguard of the Kremlin leader and allegedly one of the key players in the 2014 annexation of Crimea, Alexei Dyumin.
Fox News Digital may independently determine Dyumin’s appointment as Kursk’s operations supervisor, but George Barros, a skilled analyst of the Ukraine-Russia war and head of the Russian team and the geospatial intelligence team at the Institute for the Study of War, said Ukraine’s push for Kursk’s accession is forcing Moscow to rethink its war strategy.
Fighting rages in Russian territory after a wonderful incursion from Ukraine
“The Ukrainian operation in Kursk Oblast [forced] the Kremlin and the command of the Russian army to make a decision on whether the thousand-kilometer-long outer border with northeastern Ukraine is a valid front line that Russia will have to defend, rather than a valid inactive front line domain of the theater, just as they have been treating it since the fall of 2022,” he told Fox News Digital.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has reportedly appointed his former bodyguard and current presidential aide Alexei Dyumin (some as his chosen successor) to oversee an “anti-terrorist operation” in the Kursk region and end the Ukrainian incursion. (Photo courtesy of East2West)
“Russia has spent abundant resources building fortifications along the foreign border zone, but has not allocated the manpower and materials to equip and protect those particular fortifications,” Barros added.
Barros argued that the successful cross-border invasion of Ukraine has forced Russia to not only reassess the security of its borders, but also how it will maintain its strong position in Ukraine.
“This conclusion will increase the flexibility Russia has to devote manpower and apparatus to its ongoing offensive efforts in Ukraine, and the command of the Russian military will have to take into account border defense needs when determining how many resources it can allocate over the long term. large-scale offensive and defensive efforts in Ukraine,” Barros said.
Ukraine’s offensive on Russia has led the foreign network to question whether kyiv has reshaped how and where the war that has lasted more than two years will continue to play out. However, Zelenksy argued that moving the war to Putin’s doorstep is the only way to end the conflict.
UKRAINE VIOLATES RUSSIA’S BORDER NEAR MAJOR GAS TRANSPORTATION HUB, DEFENSE OFFICIALS SAY
Ukrainian servicemen drive a Soviet-made T-72 tank in the Sumy region, near the border with Russia, on August 12, 2024, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Ukraine introduced a marvelous offensive in the Russian border region of Kursk on August 6, 2024, capturing more than two dozen cities and towns in the largest cross-border attack on Russian soil since World War II. (Photo via ROMAN PILIPEY/AFP Getty Images)
“Russia will have to be forced into peace if Putin needs to continue to wage war,” he said late Monday.
Zelensky has called on the United States and its foreign allies to allow Kyiv to use long-range weapons to strike Russian military targets and logistics centers to counter the missile barrage it faces on a daily basis. However, Washington has refused to approve “far-reaching. “”Operations.
In May, the Biden administration subsidized its general opposition to cross-border attacks in Russia, saying Ukraine could simply use U. S. weapons to hit strategic targets to prevent attacks on Ukraine’s Kharkiv region from Russia’s Belgorod oblast.
However, according to reports last week, Kyiv attacked at least six regions of western Russia near the border with Ukraine, adding the provinces of Bryansk, Oryol, Kursk, Lipestk, Belgorod and Voronezh, in a series of drone strikes.
The Pentagon demonstrated last week that the existing operations in Ukraine are part of Washington’s policy related to Kiev’s legal use of United States-supplied weapons for “cross-border” attacks.
Biden’s leadership has continuously said it does not condone the use of long-standing diversity measures in Russia and has declined to specify what diversity is considered legal for Ukraine to continue attacking.
A satellite symbol shows the broken Sudzha border crossing in Oleshnya, Kursk region, on Aug. 6, 2024, received via Reuters on Aug. 8, 2024. (Reuters)
However, Zelensky continues to press Washington to do more, warning that bans on long-range targets prolong the war.
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“We see how this can contribute to bringing peace closer,” he said.
“We want proper authorizations from our partners to use long-range weapons,” Zelensky insisted. “This is something that can especially contribute to ending this war, as well as saving thousands of Ukrainian lives from Russian terrorism. “
Caitlin McFall is a Fox News Digital reporter on politics, the United States and the world.
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