Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he would “hold” Russia's Kursk region after Kiev invaded Moscow territory. In a new interview this week – called the move part of a “winning plan.”
In his first interview since Ukrainian forces crossed the Russian border and seized the town of Kursk, Zelenskiy declined to say whether he intended to seize more Russian territory, as Moscow has largely ignored the advance.
“What we are doing now is part of a victory plan, that's why I said Kursk is part of a broader operation,” Zelensky told NBC News. “I wanted to show President Biden a victory plan, but it has to come after we've had success in the Kursk region. So I didn't show it before, but I will definitely show it now.”
Zelensky's “victory plan” does not appear to include ending the war through negotiations, and Zelensky visibly grimaced when NBC reporter Richard Engel suggested the possibility of “negotiating” with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.
“We want to end this war,” he said. “I have a winning plan, the only purpose of which is to make the Russians stop the war and understand that what they have been doing is nonsense.”
Zelenskiy did not elaborate on other elements of the plan, citing security reasons.
The Kursk invasion came as a surprise to Kiev's allies because the Ukrainian government kept the operation top secret until it was accomplished.
“We did not inform anyone. This is not a question of distrust, we did not inform many state institutions in Ukraine,” Zelensky told Engel. “This is a war, and leaks happen all the time, not necessarily through people, but through devices, through our programs.”
The Kursk invasion was also intended to prove to the West that Ukraine could take the war to Russia without incurring the escalation of tensions through a nuclear-armed aggressor.
“What Ukraine is doing is generating very significant strategic implications with regard to Western policy supporting Ukraine,” George Barros, Russia team leader at the Institute for the Study of War, told The Washington Post this week. “Ukraine is generating a mountain of counterfactual evidence about Russian tolerance of combat operations on Russian territory.”
The idea is especially relevant now that Ukraine has long-range ATACMS missiles that can be fired at military bases inside Russia. President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have so far refused to authorize such an attack.
Washington has consistently been reluctant to authorize military action that would further “provoke” Russia and deter Ukraine from taking potentially game-changing offensive action.
“In other words, [the US was] “Previously, we said we can't allow Ukraine to do XYZ on Russian territory because it would lead to a devastating escalation, and Ukraine rebelled,” Baros said. “And now we have American strikers. [armored vehicles] British vehicles, German and French vehicles are rolling around in Russia, showing that they can actually bring the war to Russia.”
“Killing Russians on Russian soil with US-supplied weapons will not lead to such a devastating escalation of tensions,” he added.
The invasion also achieved another goal, Zelensky said: to convince at least some Russians, who have been told by the Kremlin that the conflict is not a large-scale war, that the fighting is “real” and that Putin does not support them.
“The Russian people now know that Putin doesn't care about Kursk. His only goal is to continue the war,” he said. “The Russian military is not as strong as he says and this is not a 'special military operation' as he claims. This is a real war and all his troops are in Ukraine. This is a large-scale war and our operation at Kursk proved it.”
Still, Zelensky said Ukraine has no intention of keeping the Kursk region after the war ends and “we don't need their land.”
“this is [Putin’s] “They have the idea to completely destroy us, completely destroy Ukraine and Ukrainians, and we are showing them that their own territory is not safe,” he said. “So if they bring the war to us, we will bring it to their territory.”
