Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that his main objective in Ukraine after 30 months of fighting was to capture the eastern Donbass region – and claimed Ukraine’s Kursk counteroffensive had made this easier.
Putin was speaking a day after Russia’s deadly attack on Ukraine’s western Lviv region and recent advances by Moscow’s forces in Donbass.
Since the start of its offensive in February 2022, when it failed to capture the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, Russia has adapted its goals, and has instead focused on trying to conquer eastern Ukraine.
Ukraine’s sudden entry into Russia’s Kursk region last month caught Russian forces by surprise, but Putin insisted the move had failed to halt Moscow’s advance into occupied Ukraine.
“The enemy’s goal (at Kursk) was to worry us, harass us, divert troops and prevent our offensive in key regions, especially in Donbass, the liberation of which is our main priority objective,” Putin said at a forum in Vladivostok in Russia’s Far East.
Russia claims the eastern Donetsk region and three other Ukrainian regions.
Moscow has made strong advances this summer and its troops are now about a dozen kilometres from the town of Pokrovsk – a key logistics hub in eastern Ukraine where thousands of people have fled.
Putin said Ukraine had accelerated Moscow’s advance in Donbass by sending “quite well-prepared units” to Kursk.
“As the enemy has weakened itself in key areas, our forces have intensified their offensive operations,” he argued.
‘Sacred Duty’
Putin also claimed that Moscow’s forces had begun pushing Ukrainian troops out of the Kursk region, where Kiev’s troops have occupied towns and villages for nearly a month.
“Our armed forces have stabilized the situation and have begun gradually pushing (the enemy) out of our territory,” Putin said.
It was not possible to verify those claims.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy insisted on Thursday that Ukraine was “maintaining the established borders” in the Kursk region.
Russia did not mount a large-scale response in the early days of the invasion, which was the largest invasion on Russian soil since World War II.
Putin has downplayed the significance of the Ukrainian attack but has toughened his rhetoric in recent days.
“It is the sacred duty of the Russian military to do everything possible to expel the enemy from this region and protect its citizens,” he said on Thursday.
Earlier this week, Zelenskyy told US TV channel NBC that Ukraine would maintain its hold on territory it has seized in the Kursk region.
Zelenskyy previously said one of Kiev’s “goals” in Kursk was to show the Russians “what is more important for him (Putin): the occupation of Ukrainian territories or the safety of his own population”.
Kiev has also said it wants to force Moscow into “fair” talks.
Aborted deal
Although Russian officials have been quick to say in recent weeks that the incursion at Kursk had made any negotiations with Ukraine impossible, Putin has since walked back those statements.
He said Russia was ready to negotiate — but on the basis of a failed agreement reached in Istanbul in 2022, details of which were never made public by either side.
But Putin has repeatedly said Moscow can only negotiate with Ukraine if Kiev hands over four of its regions – Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.
“Are we ready to negotiate with them? We have never refused to do so,” Putin said on Thursday.
“But this will not be based on some momentary demands, but on the documents that were agreed upon and signed in Istanbul,” he said.
The Kremlin has claimed that Russia and Ukraine were on the verge of a deal in the spring of 2022, shortly after Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine.
On Thursday, both sides reported fresh casualties near the front lines.
In Ukraine’s Donetsk region, a 74-year-old man in the town of Kostyantynivka was killed when a Russian shell hit his home, the regional prosecutor’s office said, posting a photo of a destroyed building.
One person was killed by Ukrainian shelling in Russia’s Belgorod border region, the region’s governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Telegram.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)