‘Failed Gambit’: Putin Claims Ukraine’s Kursk Move Did Not Disrupt Russian Plans in Donbas

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday that Ukraine did not achieve its objective of its diversionary action in the Kursk region, as the advance of the Russian troops continued to move at a pace unseen for a "long time".

"The Russian armed forces are taking control of territories not by 200, 300 metres at a time, but by square kilometres," he said, RT reported.

The President said that "such a provocation from Ukraine would inevitably be doomed to failure and that Moscow would "deal with the Ukrainian bandits" who entered Russian territory with the obvious purpose of further destabilizing the situation on the border.

Then, he argued that Kiev may come to realize it needs to negotiate a settlement of the conflict and repeated once again that Moscow has never refused to enter such negotiations while accusing the Ukrainian leadership of not being "interested in ending the fighting" because this would entail the necessity to hold new presidential elections on the spot after martial law in the country was lifted.

"The current authorities are clearly not ready for this, they have little chance of re-election," Putin said. "That is why they are not interested in ending the fighting, that is why they tried to carry out this provocation in Kursk Region, and before when they tried to carry out the same operation in Belgorod Region."

Meanwhile, Russia will continue to protect its people in Donbass, as well as "our common future, the future of Russia", he underscored.

Moscow "can't allow hostile structures right next to us to be created that hatch aggressive plans against our country, and constantly try to destabilise the Russian Federation", he stated.

In early August, thousands of Ukrainian troops entered Russia's Kursk in the largest cross-border assault since the beginning of the conflict back in 2022. According to Russia's Defence Ministry, the Ukrainians managed to seize some border areas at first, but their advance was subsequently brought to a grinding stopp, and the gambit has proved costly since they lost a large amount of men and material.