Around a month after the start of the Ukrainian offensive in the Russian region of Kursk, Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin believes that the goals of the leadership in Kiev have failed. The aim of the Ukrainian armed forces was to unsettle Russia so that it would stop its advance in the Donbass, Putin said. “Did the enemy succeed? No, he achieved nothing,” the president said at a plenary session at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok on the Pacific. In fact, there are now more Russian conquests in the Donetsk region than in a long time because Kiev prefers to have its “not badly trained units” fight in Kursk rather than in its own country.

Russian society is consolidated and there are more and more volunteers for front-line service, Putin said. According to him, the Russian armed forces have begun to push the Ukrainian army out of the border region in the Kursk region. “We must think first of all of the people who are going through difficult trials and suffering from these terrorist attacks,” Putin said. The situation has stabilized overall.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy justified the offensive, which began on August 6, by saying he wanted to increase pressure on Russia for negotiations on a just peace. He described the invasion of around 10,000 soldiers as a success after they had brought dozens of towns and hundreds of square kilometers under their control. Zelenskyy particularly emphasized that many Russian prisoners of war had been taken for a possible new exchange.

Putin again speaks of willingness to negotiate

After the start of the Kursk offensive, the Russian leadership had expressed rather negative views on the possibility of future negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv on an end to the conflict. In Vladivostok, however, Putin reiterated his willingness to negotiate on the basis of the agreements reached between delegations from Moscow and Kyiv in Istanbul shortly after the start of the war in 2022.