President states he wants to stop cross-border attacks by Russian forces and that counteroffensive was much needed
Ukrainian servicemen ride a tank on a road in the Sumy region near the border with Russia on 17 August.Ukrainian servicemen ride a tank on a road in the Sumy region near the border with Russia on 17 August.Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said Ukraine’s military incursion into Russia’s Kursk region aims to create a buffer zone to prevent further attacks by Moscow across the border.
In his nightly address on Sunday, Zelenskiy said: “It is now our primary task in defensive operations overall to destroy as much Russian war potential as possible and conduct maximum counteroffensive actions. This includes creating a buffer zone on the aggressor’s territory – our operation in the Kursk region.”
The Ukrainians drove deep into the region in several directions, facing little resistance and sowing chaos and panic as tens of thousands of civilians fled.Ukraine’s commander in chief, Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, claimed last week that his forces had advanced across 1,000 square kilometres of the region, although it was not possible to independently verify how much territory Ukrainian forces effectively control.
For his part, Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, said during a visit to China in May that Moscow’s offensive that month in Ukraine’s north-eastern Kharkiv region was aimed at creating a buffer zone there.
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