Russian President Vladimir Putin (center) speaks while visiting the Tubten Shedrub Ling Datsan in Kyzyl, Tyva Republic, Russia, Monday, Sept. 2, 2024. | Photo credit: AP
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday (September 2, 2024) that his troops were advancing rapidly in eastern Ukraine, calling it evidence that Kiev’s cross-border incursion into the Kursk region is failing.
His comments came hours after Moscow fired a barrage of missiles and drones at Ukraine overnight, wounding at least three people in Kiev and damaging a mosque shortly before the start of the new school year.
“People are suffering serious hardship, especially in the Kursk region,” Mr Putin told schoolchildren in Siberia in a television programme.
“But the enemy did not accomplish the main task that he set himself: to stop our offensive in Donbass… The pace of our offensive in Donbass has not been so fast for a long time,” he said.
Donbass refers to a larger region The area of eastern Ukraine that includes the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, which Moscow claims as its own and where its troops claim to be advancing.
Ukraine launched a surprise offensive into Russia’s Kursk region on August 6, sending thousands of troops across the border in the largest invasion of Russian soil since World War II.
Kiev said the offensive was aimed at driving Russian troops out of eastern Ukraine and boosting Moscow’s military might.
Some 130,000 people have fled the Russian border region since the fighting began, according to Russian state media, which has left at least a dozen people dead and more than 100 injured.
“We must certainly deal with bandits who have penetrated the territory of the Russian Federation, especially the Kursk region, and are trying to destabilize the situation in the border regions,” Putin said at the meeting.
The Russian leader’s language marked a shift from his previous statements on the incursion, which he described as an evolving “situation.”
‘Extermination campaign’
Russia has claimed in recent weeks that it has captured several small villages and settlements in eastern Ukraine and is advancing towards the city of Pokrovsk.
Pokrovsk lies at the crossroads of a major road that supplies Ukrainian troops and towns on the eastern border and has long been a target of Moscow’s forces.
Ukraine has rapidly begun evacuating families from Pokrovsk, where about 60,000 people lived before Moscow invaded in 2022.
The Russian Defence Ministry said in a briefing on Monday that it had captured the village of “Skuchne” in the eastern Donetsk region, though it gave no further details.
Russia fired more than two dozen missiles and over 20 drones at Ukraine overnight, shortly before the start of the school year, according to Kiev.
Journalists in Kiev said loud explosions were heard in the capital at around 5:30 am (0230 GMT).
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said “Overnight Russia fired a total of 35 missiles, including ballistic ones, and 23 drones at Ukraine.”
He said a mosque in the capital had been “severely damaged” and condemned Russia for its “campaign of destruction against the Ukrainian people.”
The air force said Ukraine shot down nine ballistic missiles, 13 cruise missiles and 20 attack drones.