Brussels 20.08.2024  The Ukrainian Armed Forces incursion in the Kursk region will not affect Ukraine’s European integration process, said EU diplomacy spokesperson Peter Stano.
“Ukraine has the right to defend itself, this does not affect the process of joining the EU in any way,” RIA Novosti quotes Stano as saying. (Image: illustration)

The Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) control more than 1,250 square kilometers of territory and 92 settlements in the Kursk region of the Russian Federation. This was stated on Monday, August 19, by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at a meeting with the heads of foreign diplomatic missions of Ukraine.

According to him, the AFU took “the largest number of Russian prisoners in one operation”, “replenishment of the exchange fund for Ukraine” continues.

The Russian Armed Forces have been largely pushed out of the “Russian borderland opposite our Sumy region”, Zelensky claims.

The Ukrainian leader noted that many in the world would have considered the Kursk offensive unrealistic and “crossing the supposedly reddest of all red lines that exist in Russia” just a few months ago. “That is why, in fact, no one has heard of such preparations on our part,” he said, adding that “active, preventive defense is the most effective counteraction to Russian terror.”

Earlier President Zelensky called the key goal of the offensive operation of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Kursk region “the creation of a buffer zone” to deter further Russian attacks.
“The main objective of our defensive actions is to destroy as much Russian potential, war potential, as possible and to carry out maximum counterattack work. In particular, this includes the creation of a buffer zone on the territory of the aggressor – our operation in the Kursk region,” he said in an evening address on Sunday, August 18.

The reaction on Russian President to the events remains minimal. President Putin said: “…And the enemies continue to try to destabilize our country, this is obvious. We are fighting those who commit crimes in the Kursk region, in Donbass, in Novorossiya. And we will achieve our goals in the fight against neo-Nazism – just as we achieved in the fight against terrorism”. The only mention of the Kursk region was made during the meeting with the mothers of Beslan children, during his visit to the North Caucasus. So far President Putin has not visited the region suffering from warfare.