The Ukrainian Armed Forces have raided Russian territory, capturing more than 20 settlements and are holding them now. Their advance continues.
This was told to Ukrayinska Pravda by Roman Kostenko, a member of the Voice faction and secretary of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on National Security, Defence and Intelligence, who recently recorded a video from the Kursk Region of the Russian Federation.
He noted that the Defence Forces had previously had small operations on Russian territory involving Russian volunteers. Now our combat brigades are taking part in the raid.
"This is a very difficult task - a raid into enemy territory. And despite the fact that we remember that our partners forbade us to shoot towards Russia, the Commander-in-Chief together with the Supreme Commander-in-Chief decided to invade the enemy's territory," Kostenko said.
He also explained the importance of such operations.
"Firstly, it speaks of asymmetric actions. Many experts are now saying: why did we go there, and not, for example, give reinforcements to other areas where it is really hot now? And at the same time, they say that we should act asymmetrically. The Kursk campaign is just an example of such asymmetric actions. If we were to send these troops to the areas where heavy fighting is taking place, they would, in fact, be engaged in symmetrical actions. And so we have 350 square kilometres of territory that we captured in one day," Kostenko said.
The day before, on 12 August, Kostenko posted a video in which he jokingly said that he would enter the Kursk Region of the Russian Federation without a business trip and promised Rada Speaker Stefanchuk that he would issue one later. He acknowledged that he was crossing the border as a military man and an MP "without permission" and apologised for it.