Ukraine acknowledges attacking Russia’s Kursk region as fighting continues for 3rd day
- 9 August, 08:20
As the fighting in Russia’s Kursk region continues for the third consecutive day, Kyiv Ukraine publicly justified its attack on the Russian territory.
In the first such acknowledgement of Ukraine’s incursion into Russian territory, Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior adviser to the president’s office said the root cause of escalation was “unequivocal aggression” on the part of Russia that believed it could invade Ukraine.
“The architect behind the “self-destruction of Russia” concept is well-known – none other than the entity Putin himself," Podolyak said. “War is war, with its own rules, where the aggressor inevitably reaps corresponding outcomes,” he went on saying.
Around 1,000 Ukrainian troops launched a cross-border attack on Russia’s Kursk region on August 6 with the support of dozens of armored combat vehicles and tanks. Ukrainian troops have advanced up to 15km into Kursk, according to some reports.
The Russian Defence Ministry reported that 34 civilians, including nine children were killed as Ukrainian army units staged an incursion into Kurs. Vladimir Putin described Ukraine’s surprise attack on Kurs as a “large-scale provocation”. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy praised his country’s army following the attack, however, did not make direct reference to the incursion into Kursk. “Everyone sees that the Ukrainian army knows how to surprise and how to achieve results. This was proven in the battlefield where our soldiers not only withstood the overwhelming force of the invaders, but also destroyed it in the way necessary to protect Ukraine, our state and our independence,” Zelenskiy said on Thursday, two days after the largest-scale incursion into Russia’s territory since the start of Russia’s full-fledged invasion of the country in February 2022.
