The News
Russia has launched a significant counteroffensive to push Ukrainian forces out of Kursk, the southern border region which was partially occupied by Ukraine last month.
Speaking at a news conference, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the Russian “counteroffensive actions were according to our Ukrainian plan.” Russia’s defense ministry has said it has reclaimed 10 of the more than 100 settlements Ukraine has said it seized in the incursion, which caught Russia by surprise last month.
Zelenskyy has said Ukrainian troops will remain in Kursk indefinitely, as the territory was key to Ukraine’s “victory plan,” raising the possibility that it could be used as a bargaining chip.
SIGNALS
Ukraine expects to hold on in Russia
So far, Ukrainian officials have expressed confidence that their soldiers will rebuff Russia’s counteroffensive. A senior Ukrainian official told the Financial Times that Russia had made little progress, and that they were not seeing a major Russian push. But a Ukrainian commander fighting in Kursk said that “the situation is serious, everything is being shelled, and the road on which supplies were brought is no longer usable.” Even so, the official said “we are in control. We are holding,” The Washington Post reported. According to DeepState, a Ukrainian group that monitors the battlefield, the country’s forces still control more than 800 square kilometers of the territory.
Kremlin redirects troops from Ukraine
So far, Ukrainian officials have expressed confidence that their soldiers will rebuff Russia’s counteroffensive. A senior Ukrainian official told the Financial Times that Russia had made little progress, and that they were not seeing a major Russian push. But a Ukrainian commander fighting in Kursk said that “the situation is serious, everything is being shelled, and the road on which supplies were brought is no longer usable.” Even so, the official said “we are in control. We are holding,” The Washington Post reported. According to DeepState, a Ukrainian group that monitors the battlefield, the country’s forces still control more than 800 square kilometers of the territory.
US and UK inch closer to allowing strikes deep inside Russia
As Ukrainian troops have been hunkering down in Kursk, Ukrainian diplomats have been pushing hard for permission to use Western-supplied missiles and fighter jets to strike deeper inside Russia. The diplomatic campaign appears to be yielding results: The Guardian reported that the UK could soon allow Ukraine to use British long-range missiles to strike Russia. The US and UK are negotiating about how this might work, as British missiles tend to rely on American navigational data to maximize their accuracy, Bloomberg noted. Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that allowing Ukraine to strike deeper into Russia would put NATO “at war” with Russia.