As of now, Russia has more than 67,000 troops in the Kursk sector. It is there that the largest number of battles take place on average, and this area remains difficult. Initially, Russia was moving troops to the Kursk Region in order to launch an offensive in the Sumy sector.
However, the Defence Forces took steps in the Kursk Region, where it borders the Belgorod direction, and disrupted the enemy's plans. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said this at a meeting with journalists in response to a question from the editor-in-chief of lb.ua.
‘Our soldiers took the appropriate steps, which stretched and prevented the Russians from forming an offensive fist in the form they had expected,’ the president commented.
He included the actions in the Belgorod Region among these steps.
‘The steps taken in the Belgorod direction are correct in order to force the Russians not to make a single ‘fist’ either in the Kharkiv or Sumy direction. This is happening today. There are a lot of attempts there, every day. They are suffering losses,’ he said.
In general, the enemy's advance is on the decline after it had successes and advanced rapidly in November.
‘After that, the losses have been growing very much, and the advance has started to decline. We believe that this is the moment when everything started working in full. Kursk and everything worked better on our side. Despite all the existing difficulties,’ he commented.
According to the President, the situation in the Pokrovsk sector is not completely stabilised, but Russia is not advancing there.
‘We can say that it is stabilised, but it is difficult there. They are still trying somewhere, there are fierce battles in Shevchenkove. We believe they have not changed their plans - Sumy, Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhya directions. They are not forgetting about the East. This is an access to the borders of Donetsk and Luhansk regions. This was their plan from the very beginning of the war. They are trying very hard to do this. We don't see them having sufficient forces there today, in the East and on the Zaporizhzhya direction. There will be more attempts in Kharkiv and Sumy,’ he said.
- On 7 April, Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed the Ukrainian presence in the Belgorod Region, which was previously reported by unofficial sources. This is the second Russian region where Ukrainian troops have launched an operation to deter the enemy's advance into their territory.
- At the end of March, Zelenskyy warned that Russia was preparing an offensive in Sumy and Kharkiv regions. In an interview with lb.ua, Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyy confirmed that this offensive had already begun: a week earlier (the interview was recorded last week), Russia had almost doubled the number of attacks on all major directions. Syrskyy explained that in these two regions - Sumy and Kharkiv - as well as in Chernihiv - Russia wants to create a so-called buffer zone.