This article was originally published by Tyler Durden at ZeroHedge.
President Putin has continued to downplay Ukraine’s major Kursk invasion, which has resulted in Russian territory occupied by Kiev forces, and has instead maintained that capturing and holding all the Donbas in eastern Ukraine remains the goal.
“We have to deal with these thugs who made it into Russia,” he said at an event while visiting Russia’s east on Thursday. He’s yet to launch a broader general mobilization despite the assault on Kursk and the border region.
He presented the Kursk operation as essentially a trap which he will not fall into. “The aim of the enemy [in Kursk] was to force us to worry, hustle, divert troops and to stop our offensive in key areas, especially in the Donbas, the liberation of which is our main primary objective,” Putin described at a forum in Vladivostok.
Ukrainian artillery targeting Russian positions near Pokrovsk in Donetsk region. Source: Ukrainian military via Reuters
Putin further painted a picture of the Kursk operation already having backfired on the Zelensky government. He said Ukraine’s leadership sent “quite well-prepared units” into Kursk – but this only served to allow for Russia to make a quicker advance in Donetsk.
“The enemy weakened itself in key areas, our army has accelerated its offensive operations,” he asserted. He still sought to emphasize that Russian forces have begun to push the Ukrainian invaders back from Russian territory, however. But Putin said, “Our armed forces have stabilized the situation and started gradually squeezing [the enemy] out from our territory.”
Yet the Kursk fight has been on since Aug. 6 – and this alone has been a big symbolic blow for Kremlin war planners. It is the biggest incursion into Russia since WW2. “It is the holy duty of the Russian army to do everything to throw out the enemy from this territory
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