KYIV: Ukraine now controls 74 settlements in Russia’s Kursk border region, the country’s president Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday.

The governor of the Kursk region, where Ukraine is mounting a week-long incursion, previously said on Monday that Ukraine controls 28 settlements.

“There are 74 settlements under the control of Ukraine,” Zelensky said in his evening address. The president said that “despite difficult, intense fighting, the advance of our forces in the Kursk region continues.”

He said that Ukraine has been able to “replenish” its numbers of Russian POWs to exchange for its own troops and “preparation for our next steps cont­inues”.

He posted footage showing him holding a video call with military chief Oleksandr Syrsky. Syrsky tells him: “As of today, our troops have advanced in some areas by 1 to 3 kilometres.”

In the last day, Ukraine has taken control of “40 square kilometres of territory”, Syrsky adds, after saying that the troops hold around 1,000 square kilometres of Russian territory. “Fighting is ongoing along the entire front line. The situation is under control despite the high intensity of fighting,” Syrsky said.

Kyiv said on Tuesday its biggest cross-border assault of the war to date would prevent Russia from sending more troops to fight in its eastern Donetsk region and disrupt military logistics, and that Kyiv had no interest in occupying Russian territory.

Ukraine blindsided Moscow by pouring thousands of troops into the western Russian region of Kursk last week in a surprise operation that Kyiv says has seen its forces take 1,000 sq km of land, its largest gains since 2022.

“Unlike Russia, Ukraine does not need other people’s property. Ukraine is not interested in taking the territory of the Kursk region, but we want to protect the lives of our people,” Ukraine’s foreign ministry’s spokesman said.

Published in Dawn, August 14th, 2024