Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday hailed his forces’ success in their surprise offensive into Russia’s territory, an advance that triggered the Kremlin to rule out entering peace talks with Kyiv.
Ukraine sent troops and tanks over the border on August 6, piercing several kilometres into Russia’s Kursk region, where they are holding onto a chunk of territory.
The biggest attack on Russian soil since World War II has rattled Moscow and taken Ukraine’s Western allies by surprise.
Zelensky on Monday said the incursion was achieving Kyiv’s objectives, which officials have previously said include stretching Russian forces, creating a “buffer zone” and bringing the war “closer” to an end on “fair” terms.
But Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said Kyiv’s attack had pushed the prospect of peace talks further away.
“At the current stage, given this escapade, we will not talk,” he said Monday.
He called entering a negotiating process “completely inappropriate” and said future talks “depend on the situation on the battlefield, including in the Kursk region.”
Moscow, intent on not letting the offensive affect its own advance in eastern Ukraine, claimed another village in the war-battered Donetsk region on Monday.
And bracing for a further assault, Ukraine ordered the evacuation of families from the key city of Pokrovsk as Moscow’s forces inched closer to the logistics hub.
In Kursk, Zelensky’s troops have set up administrative offices and published previously unthinkable footage of Ukrainian soldiers patrolling Russian streets.
“We are achieving our goals. This morning we have another replenishment of the (prisoner of war) exchange fund for our country,” Zelensky said, referring to more Russian troops being taken captive.
On Sunday, he said the push into Russian territory was designed to create a “buffer zone”.
– ‘Up close and personal’ –
The prospect of peace talks appeared distant even before Ukraine launched its incursion into Russia.
Russian President Vladimir Putin had demanded Ukraine cede swathes of territory if it wanted a ceasefire.
Zelensky, who has ruled out direct talks with the Kremlin, demands Russia’s full withdrawal from Ukrainian territory, including Crimea, and reparations.
Seeking to give impetus to a possible settlement, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Ukraine on Friday, officials in New Delhi and Kyiv said.
Modi recently visited Moscow, is close with Putin and has made no secret of his desire to bring about an end to the conflict.
Meanwhile, Ukraine was pushing on Monday with its Kursk offensive.
A third bridge over the Seym river inside Russia was hit over the weekend, a Russian military investigator said in a video published by high-profile pro-Kremlin TV commentator Vladimir Solovyov.
It has left Russia with limited supply options, according to Russian military bloggers.
Moscow’s defence ministry said Russia had thwarted Ukrainian attacks on three more villages.
The incursion has visibly worried Russians, prompting some in Kyiv to hope that sentiment could turn the country against the Kremlin’s more than two-year war.
“Accustomed to seeing the war as a television show, Russians are now seeing it up close and personal,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said on X.
“If you don’t want to see the war, you have to end the war by forcing your ‘leadership’ to make peace on fair terms.”
– Ukraine evacuates Pokrovsk –
In eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, Moscow said it captured the town of Artemovo, which is called Zalizne in Ukrainian.
Zalizne had a population of around 5,000 at the start of 2022 — making it one of the largest places captured by Russian troops in recent weeks.
Ukrainian artillery fired on a bus stop in the city of Donetsk, which is under Russia’s control, killing a pregnant woman and wounding 10 including two children, said Denis Pushilin, the Russian-installed governor.
Ukraine said Russian attacks killed four people in frontline towns, with a 71-year-old woman killed in her garden in Toretsk and three civilians in their 60s and 70s killed in the village of Zarichne.
As the front moved further west towards the city of Pokrovsk, Ukrainian officials announced the compulsory evacuation of families with children.
More than 53,000 people still live in the area, including almost 4,000 children.
Filashkin called the decision to evacuate “necessary and inevitable”.
Russia has long tried to capture Pokrovsk, which lies on the intersection of a key road that supplies Ukrainian troops.
