KYIV, Ukraine
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said his military's ongoing incursion into Russia's Kursk region is now holding down 50,000 Russian troops.
In his daily address to the
nation, Zelensky said the operation was reducing Moscow's ability to attack
inside Ukraine itself. The president has long cited this as the goal of the
offensive, despite scepticism from some Western allies.
According to the Institute for
the Study of War, a US non-profit, Russia had 11,000 troops in Kursk when
Ukraine began its shock incursion in early August.
However, a report in the New York Times suggests Moscow has
achieved its troop build-up in Kursk without any need to pull its soldiers out
of Ukraine.
The paper says North Korean
troops are also being deployed in Kursk as part of an imminent Russian
counter-offensive.
In his speech, Zelensky said
he had been briefed by his Сommander-in-Сhief, Gen Oleksandr Syrskyy, who
announced earlier on Monday that he had carried out an inspection of Ukrainian
units deployed in Kursk.
"Our men are holding
back... 50,000 of the occupier's army personnel who, due to the Kursk
operation, cannot be deployed to other Russian offensive directions on our
territory," the Ukrainian president said.
Gen Syrskyy said separately
that were it not for Ukraine's forces inside Kursk, "tens of thousands of
enemies from the best Russian assault units would have been storming"
Ukrainian positions in Donetsk region, a key battleground since the conflict
erupted a decade ago.
Fighting rages on in Donetsk,
where the two sides accused each other on Monday of damaging a dam near the
Ukrainian-held town of Kurakhove. Russian troops have been slowly advancing in
the region for months towards the key city of Pokrovsk - a major supply hub for
Ukrainian forces.
The New York Times, which
quotes both US and Ukrainian unnamed officials, puts the number of Russian and
North Korean troops being readied for the reported counter-offensive in Kursk
at 50,000.
"A new US assessment
concludes that Russia has massed the force without having to pull soldiers out
of Ukraine’s east - its main battlefield priority - allowing Moscow to press on
multiple fronts simultaneously," the paper says.
Both Ukraine and the US say
that more than 10,000 North Korean soldiers have been sent to Russia. Moscow
neither confirms nor denies that troops from North Korea, a close ally since
Soviet times, are in Kursk.
In North Korea itself, it was
announced that its leader, Kim Jong un, had signed a decree ratifying a mutual
defence treaty with Russia, which was approved in June at a summit in Pyongyang
with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
North Korea and Russia have
grown increasingly close since Moscow found itself largely internationally
isolated after its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The US has repeatedly
accused Pyongyang of sending vast amounts of military hardware to Russia, including
ballistic missiles and launchers.
Nato Secretary General Mark
Rutte recently suggested that Pyongyang was receiving
military technology and other support from Moscow to help it evade
international sanctions
Elsewhere, amid much
speculation over the impact of Donald Trump's re-election victory last
week, the Kremlin has denied media reports that he held a phone call
with President Vladimir Putin.
The call, which was first
reported by the Washington Post on Sunday, is said to have happened on
Thursday. Trump is said to have warned the Russian president against escalating
the war in Ukraine and mentioned America's extensive military presence in Europe.
No comments:
Post a Comment