The Ukrainian forces broke the Russian border on August 6 and took a slice of dirt inside Russia in an attempt to distract Moscow forces from the front lines in eastern Ukraine and gain potential bargain chip.
But a lightning Russian breakthrough in recent days has left Ukraine with a chip of less than 200 square meters in Kursk, below 1300 m² km at the height of the raid last summer, according to the Russian military.
“Our task in the near future, in the shortest possible time, is to decide to decide the entrenched enemy in the Kursk region,” Putin told Generals in television comments on Wednesday.
“And of course, we need to think about creating a security zone along the state border.”
Putin’s observations, dressed in green camouflage uniforms, came when US President Donald Trump said he hoped Moscow would agree with a cease -he said that if not, Washington could cause financial pain in Russia.
Valery Gerasimov, Russia’s head of state, told Putin that Russian forces had driven the Ukrainian forces of over 86% of the territory they had kept in Kursk, equivalent to 1100m² of land.
Gerasimov said Ukraine’s plans to use Kursk as a bargain chip in possible future negotiations with Russia failed and its bet that its Kursk operation would force Russia to dodge troops from its advancement in eastern Ukraine did not work either.
He said the Russian forces have resumed 24 settlements and 259 m² of land from the Ukrainian forces in the last five days, along with more than 400 prisoners.
Russia’s operation of Ejecting Kursk’s Ukrainian forces entered its final phase, the Tass state news agency said on Thursday citing Kremlin’s gate, Dmitry Peskov.
Ukraine’s leading army commander Oleksandr Syrskyi said on Wednesday that Kiev troops will continue to operate in Kursk as long as necessary and the fighting continued in the city of Sudzha and around the city.
The US agreed on Tuesday to resume the supply of weapons and the intelligence sharing with Ukraine after Kiev said in Saudi Arabia negotiations that was ready to support a ceasing proposal.
Kremlin said on Wednesday he was carefully studying the results of this meeting and awaited details from the US.
