Zelenskiy Says Ukraine’s Kursk Incursion Has Slowed Moscow’s Eastern Advance

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy attends the Fourth Crimea Platform Leaders Summit in Kyiv, Ukraine, September 11, 2024. (Reuters)
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy attends the Fourth Crimea Platform Leaders Summit in Kyiv, Ukraine, September 11, 2024. (Reuters)
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Zelenskiy Says Ukraine’s Kursk Incursion Has Slowed Moscow’s Eastern Advance

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy attends the Fourth Crimea Platform Leaders Summit in Kyiv, Ukraine, September 11, 2024. (Reuters)
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy attends the Fourth Crimea Platform Leaders Summit in Kyiv, Ukraine, September 11, 2024. (Reuters)

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Friday Ukraine's incursion into Russia's border region of Kursk had produced the desired result of slowing Moscow's advance on another front in the east of his country.

Zelenskiy told a conference in Kyiv that Russia's counterattack in the Kursk region had also had no major successes - contradicting President Vladimir Putin's accounts of Russian advances on both fronts.

Ukraine launched a surprise incursion in the Kursk region on Aug. 6, pushing into the Russian territory and claiming control over dozens of settlements.

"It gave the results that, frankly speaking, we counted on. In the Kharkiv region, the enemy was stopped. Their advance in the Donetsk region was slowed down, although it is very difficult there," Zelenskiy said.

Zelenskiy said that Russia had about 40,000 troops on the Kursk front, and those had begun a counterattack. "So far we have seen no serious (Russian) success," he added, during his most comprehensive public comments on the situation since the launch of the Kursk operation.

Russia's defense ministry said on Friday its troops had taken back 10 villages out of 100 that Kyiv had claimed.

Reuters has not been able to verify battlefield reports from either side independently.

PLAN FOR A 'RELIABLE PEACE'

More than 2-1/2 years since Russia's full-scale invasion, the war is at a critical juncture, with Moscow regularly pounding Ukrainian infrastructure and cities as its troops try to push back Ukraine's incursion and complete the capture of the whole of Ukraine's eastern Donbas region.

Zelenskiy acknowledged that the situation near the logistics hub of Pokrovsk in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region remained difficult though he said that had stabilized over the past week.

Ukraine's General Staff reported on Friday that Russian forces focused their assaults near the town of Kurakhove, about 33 km (20 miles) south of Pokrovsk.

Kyiv's forces are stretched thin in the eastern Donetsk region, but the military said they had repelled 64 assaults near Kurakhove in the past day, the most intense fighting there so far this month. An additional 36 Russian assaults had been repelled near Pokrovsk, it added.

Zelenskiy has earlier described the Kursk operation as a part of his broader "victory plan" he aims to present the US President Joe Biden later this month.

"(The plan) can pave the way for a reliable peace – for the full implementation of the peace formula," Zelenskiy said on Friday.

He declined to disclose the details of the plan but said it consisted of a small number of points.

"And all these points depend on Biden's decision. Not Putin's," Zelenskiy added.

Ukraine has stepped up calls on its Western allies, in particular the United States, to allow long-range attacks into Russia, saying it is critical for its efforts to restrict Moscow's ability to attack Ukraine.

Allies have so far been reluctant to permit such strikes, citing fears Moscow will treat this as escalation.



Iran Stops Indirect Talks with US in Oman

This handout picture provided by the Oman News Agency shows Oman's Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi (R) receiving Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi in Muscat on October 14, 2024. (Photo by Salem AL-Shukeili / Oman News Agency / AFP) /
This handout picture provided by the Oman News Agency shows Oman's Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi (R) receiving Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi in Muscat on October 14, 2024. (Photo by Salem AL-Shukeili / Oman News Agency / AFP) /
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Iran Stops Indirect Talks with US in Oman

This handout picture provided by the Oman News Agency shows Oman's Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi (R) receiving Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi in Muscat on October 14, 2024. (Photo by Salem AL-Shukeili / Oman News Agency / AFP) /
This handout picture provided by the Oman News Agency shows Oman's Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi (R) receiving Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi in Muscat on October 14, 2024. (Photo by Salem AL-Shukeili / Oman News Agency / AFP) /

Iran has stopped indirect talks with the United States in Oman as tensions remain high over a possible Israeli retaliatory strike on Tehran over an earlier missile attack, the Iranian foreign minister said Monday.

Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi made the comment to Iranian state media while still in Muscat, Oman.

“For the time being, the Muscat process is stopped because of special situation in the region,” Araqchi said, according to the state-run IRNA news agency. “We do not see any ground for the talks until we can pass the current crisis.”

The US State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Iran under new President Masoud Pezeshkian has been signaling it wants to negotiate with the US for sanctions relief. Since then-President Donald Trump pulled America out of the nuclear accord, Tehran has begun enriching uranium to nearly weapons-grade levels and increasing the size of its stockpile. However, US intelligence agencies and officials insist Iran has not begun an effort to build a nuclear weapon.

Meanwhile, Israel has threatened a major retaliatory strike over Iran’s ballistic missile attack earlier this month, the second-such direct assault on Israel by Iran since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.