Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday called his military’s operation in Kursk Oblast a success, as the last remnants of Kyiv’s forces leave the Russian territory they have occupied since August.
Ukraine shocked the world with its bold offensive operation in the summer that at its height took control of an area about the size of Los Angeles in Kursk, Russia. The idea was to distract Russian forces from advancing on the strategically important city of Pokrovsk in southeastern Ukraine, a goal Zelensky said was achieved.
“I believe the mission is accomplished,” he said. “I think that the situation in the Pokrovsk direction is now stable, and it will be very difficult to find an opportunity to occupy Pokrovsk again.”
Ukraine’s Kursk operation aimed to lure Russian troops away from Pokrovsk in the direction of more Ukrainian-secure areas in Kharkiv and Sumy, Zelensky said.
Before Ukraine’s Kursk operation, Sumy particularly had seen little conflict or military purpose since Ukraine forced Russia out of the region during the war.
“The first pressure fell on the Kharkiv direction. [The Russians] pulled as many of their troops as possible from there to Kursk. Then they began to withdraw from the eastern direction but did not abandon their main task — Pokrovsk,” he said.
Still, Ukraine stayed in Kursk to continue its operation for seven months. There had been some hope that Zelensky could trade the Russian region in potential peace negotiations with Moscow, but Russian dictator Vladimir Putin showed no interest in making a trade.
“We are just strong people who understood that at some point there is a chance that the Russians will stop at the Pokrovsk direction. And that’s how it turned out,” Zelensky said. “The Pokrovsk direction -— the situation is stabilized, as well as in the Kharkiv direction.”
His declaration of success comes as the majority of Ukraine’s forces have finished their withdrawal from Kursk, which began March 5.
Zelensky has not confirmed whether all troops have left the region, but at least some remained as of Friday morning, according to Foundation for Defending Democracies’ John Hardie.
“Some Ukrainian forces apparently remain at Sudzha’s western suburbs and in the Guyevo area,” Hardie said.
But the total is far lower than the estimate of “thousands” that President Trump cited Friday morning on Truth Social. The president added that he “strongly recommended” Putin spare those troops’ lives.
Multiple US and Ukrainian officials and experts denied Friday that Kyiv’s troops were in such a position, as their withdrawal from Kursk has been under way for more than a week.
“It seems as if most Ukrainian forces withdrew or are finalizing their fighting withdrawal,” said George Barros of the Institute for the Study of War. “Our team is not tracking significant Russian claims of Russian forces surrounding Ukrainian forces at scale, and certainly not by the thousands.”
Leave a Reply