Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Tuesday that the country’s armed forces are currently in control of 74 settlements in Russia’s Kursk region.
According to his words, quoted on social network X, “despite complex intense fighting,” the AFU continues to advance in the region. Zelenskyy also said that the military had increased its “exchange fund,” referring to capturing Russians to exchange for captured Ukrainians. He did not specify exactly how many Russian soldiers had been captured, but said there were “hundreds.”
Earlier, AFU chief Oleksandr Syrskyy reported to the Ukrainian president that the size of the Russian-controlled territory is a thousand square kilometers: this is slightly less than the territory seized by Russian troops this year during offensives in Ukraine’s Donetsk and Kharkiv regions. This estimate has no independent confirmation and is criticized by many military experts and analysts.
The day before, the interim governor of Kursk Region, Alexei Smirnov, admitted at a meeting with the “Russian president” that the AFU had captured 28 settlements in the region.
Russia’s Defense Ministry and the Chechen Akhmat unit in the Kursk region said Tuesday that the advance of Ukrainian troops has been halted and work is now underway to knock them out of the region. Vladimir Putin claims that “elite AFU units” are suffering “catastrophic” losses.
At the same time on Tuesday, several videos of troops advancing deep into Russian territory were published in pro-war Ukrainian Telegram channels.
Ukrainian media also regularly feature clips of dozens of allegedly surrendered soldiers of the regular Russian army. Many of them give their names and military unit numbers on camera and ask to be exchanged for soldiers of the Ukrainian Azov regiment who are in Russian captivity. Earlier, a number of participants in the military operation in Kursk Region on the Ukrainian side said that they would demand that the captured Russians be exchanged for the Azov soldiers, as they are allegedly subjected to cruel torture in Russia.
The Russian Defense Ministry has not commented in any way on the clips of the prisoners. The commander of the Akhmat unit, Apti Alaudinov, admitted that the AFU had captured several Russian servicemen from Chechnya.
The Ukrainian army entered the territory of Russia’s Kursk Region on August 6. Since that day, fighting has continued in the region. The AFU claims control over dozens of settlements, including the district center of Suja. The Russian authorities either deny such information or do not comment on it. Nevertheless, a federal emergency regime has been declared in the Kursk region. More than 100 thousand people have been evacuated from the region at the moment. Evacuation is also taking place in the territories of Belgorod region bordering Ukraine.
