Ukraine intends to retain control over the territories occupied by it in the Kursk region. This was announced by CIA deputy chief David Cohen at a conference on intelligence and national security, Reuters reports.
Kiev said it had no plans to annex Russian border regions; in fact, the AFU is building defensive lines, Cohen noted. He said this indicates that the Ukrainian army intends to hold the territories for some time.
American intelligence believes that under the control of the Ukrainian military in the Kursk region are now about 800 square kilometers. At the same time, the AFU chief reported the other day that Ukraine controls almost 1,300 square kilometers.
Cohen emphasized that Russian President Vladimir Putin will definitely launch a counter-offensive in Kursk region and try to regain the lost land. Otherwise, the Kremlin will have to deal with negative consequences in society, the CIA deputy chief said.
The U.S. press wrote that Moscow would need about 50,000 soldiers to regain control of the Kursk region. Now Russia does not have such a number of soldiers, according to sources familiar with the intelligence data.
The Russian Defense Ministry has no plans to withdraw troops from the Pokrovsk region in Donbas. The Bloomberg news agency reported that Russia might send conscript soldiers to Kursk region.
The Ukrainian army entered the territory of Russia’s Kursk region on August 6 – after almost two and a half years of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Fighting has continued in the region since that day. 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.
The Kursk region is under a federal emergency regime. From the border areas, according to official data, more than 130 thousand people have been evacuated.
