Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed senior military leaders in the Kursk area to praise them for what the Kremlin termed a “victory” in the expulsion of Ukrainian troops, Russian news outlets reported Sunday. Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov indicated that Putin personally thanked the leaders for their “heroic” work, singling out those whose units had best performed in the campaign.
The commander of the campaign briefed Putin that Ukrainian troops were pushed back and that the remaining enclaves of resistance would be eradicated in the near future. Russian soldiers regained the village of Gornal, close to the Russian-Ukrainian border, and were clearing the surrounding woods.
Putin on Saturday credited Russian troops for the “complete failure” of the Ukrainian operation in Kursk, saying the region was completely under Moscow’s control.
But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy painted a very different picture. In a post on Telegram, Zelenskyy indicated Ukrainian troops are still present both in the Kursk region as well as in the adjacent Belgorod province. In a report by Ukrainian military commander Oleksandr Syrskyi, Russian troops made almost 70 attempts to attack Ukrainian positions on Sunday alone, with intense fighting raging in Pokrovsk, Kramatorsk, and Lyman in the east.
Zelenskyy pointed out that the Ukrainian campaign in Kursk successfully pushed Russia to divert substantial troop numbers away from other major battlegrounds.
Simultaneously, in an effort to win further international support, Zelenskyy had a meeting with US President Donald Trump in Rome on Saturday. Describing the encounter as possibly “historic,” Zelenskyy hoped that it might hasten the movement toward peace. The White House described the meetings as “very productive.”
Russia, which began its all-out invasion in February 2022, now holds around 20% of Ukraine’s land.
