Ukraine's incursion into Kursk Oblast failed to make Russia "nervous, fuss, and redeploy" troops away from the east of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Sept. 5.
Ukraine launched the incursion into Kursk Oblast on Aug. 6, marking the first time Russia has been invaded by a foreign power since World War II.
Speaking at a plenary session of the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, the largest city in Russia's Far East, Putin claimed that Ukraine had "weakened itself" by launching its operation in Kursk Oblast.
Ukraine transferred "fairly large and well-trained units" to Kursk Oblast, allowing Russian troops to accelerate their offensive in the east of Ukraine, Putin claimed. The Russian president named capturing the rest of Donbas as Russia's current primary goal.
The task of pushing out Ukrainian forces from Kursk Oblast is a "sacred duty" for Russian soldiers, Putin added.
Ukraine's Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi confirmed on Aug. 27 that one of the objectives of the operation was to divert a significant number of Russian forces, primarily from the Pokrovsk and Kurakhove sectors in Donetsk Oblast.
Syrskyi said that Moscow has redeployed about 30,000 troops from other sectors to the Kursk direction, "and this number is growing." At the same time, Russia deployed its most combat-ready units in the Pokrovsk sector.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said at a press conference on Aug. 27, in response to a question by the Kyiv Independent, that Russian troops had slowed their advance toward Pokrovsk since the incursion began.
According to the crowd-sourced monitoring website DeepState, Russian troops have been advancing towards Pokrovsk throughout the three weeks of the ongoing Kursk operation.
Abbey Fenbert
Putin also claimed Russia would respond if the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant was damaged, threatening that "one can only imagine what will happen to this part of Europe if we respond in kind."
Russian forces reportedly started to construct defensive lines near the Kursk plant in mid-August as Ukrainian troops advanced within 50 kilometers (31 miles) of the nuclear facility.
The plant is located nearly 80 kilometers (50 miles) from the Kursk Oblast border town of Sudzha, the initial focus of Ukraine's incursion.
According to Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi, as of Aug. 27, Ukraine controlled 1,294 square kilometers (around 500 square miles) and 100 settlements, including Sudzha.
These claims have not been independently verified by The Kyiv Independent.
Francis Farrell
