Ukraine’s operation in Russia’s Kursk region was a part of a broader military, political and diplomatic effort aimed at making Russia accept a 'fair peace’, said President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday night received reports from at least five commanders involved in combat missions in Russian territories bordering Ukraine, the Kremlin said on Sunday.
Beijing urged the US to “stop its wrong practices” after Chinese companies were included on a sanctions list designed to target supply chains feeding Russia and hobble its wartime economy.
Zelensky wants to make Russia accept a ‘fair peace’
Ukraine’s operation in Russia’s Kursk region was a part of a broader military, political and diplomatic effort aimed at making Russia accept a “fair peace”, said President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“Everything we do is for the purpose of forcing Russia be ready for fair peace,” Zelensky told Indian journalists in Kyiv on Sunday, according to his Telegram.
Ukraine’s leader also discussed with the visiting media Ukraine’s planned second peace summit, his meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday, and Kyiv’s hoped-for integration into the European Union.
Ukrainian forces launched a surprise incursion into Russia’s Kursk region this month. On Saturday, Zelensky said the move was done to protect the northeastern Sumy region and to capture Russian soldiers who could be used for prisoner-of-war swaps.
The first swap involving those Kursk-area POWs took place on Saturday with each side exchanging 115 soldiers.
“I am looking very positively how this operation is going,” Zelensky told journalists in Kyiv, standing alongside Poland’s president and Lithuania’s prime minister, who visited the capital to mark Ukrainian Independence Day.
“The operation is difficult but it is important that it is going according to our plan, said Zelensky, without elaborating further.
Zelensky denied that Ukraine wanted to use land in Kursk as a bargaining chip in talks with Russia. At an event to mark the national holiday, he said the only process Ukraine supported was the so-called peace formula that envisaged steps from food and nuclear security to a full Russian troop withdrawal from Ukrainian territory.
“The end of the war is restoration of Ukrainian territorial integrity and preventing the repeat of Russian Federation aggression,” Zelensky said. “But if we cannot” end the war diplomatically, “we will do our best so that our army is ready to force Putin out from the territory of our state.”
On a day when he also spoke with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz about the current situation on the front lines, Zelensky urged Ukraine’s “friends” to press allies to allow deeper strikes inside Russia. He also announced that Ukraine used its new long-range drone and missile called Palyanytsia for the first time, without providing any details.
Separately on Saturday, Zelensky promoted army commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskyi to the rank of general, according to a decree published on the president’s website. Syrskyi (59) previously held the rank of colonel general.
Putin meets army commanders as Kyiv’s incursion continues
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday night received reports from at least five commanders involved in combat missions in Russian territories bordering Ukraine, the Kremlin said on Sunday.
Ukrainian forces claim to have control of more than 1,250 square kilometres of territory in the first foreign military offensive inside Russia since World War 2.
In an operational update, Russia’s defence ministry said its troops continued to repel Ukrainian efforts in several settlements in the Kursk region, from which thousands of residents have fled in recent weeks.
“Reconnaissance and search operations continue to identify and destroy enemy sabotage groups in forested areas that were attempting to penetrate deep into Russian territory,” said the ministry.
The Kremlin on Saturday released video of Putin meeting with Valery Gerasimov, chief of the Russian Armed Forces General Staff. It was unclear when the meeting took place.
A Ukrainian strike killed five people in Kursk’s neighbouring Belgorod region, AFP reported, citing regional Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov.
China ‘firmly opposed’ to US sanctions on Russia-linked entities
Beijing urged the US to “stop its wrong practices” after Chinese companies were included on a sanctions list designed to target supply chains feeding Russia and hobble its wartime economy.
The Asian nation was “firmly opposed” to the sanctions and “will take necessary measures to resolutely safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies”, the Ministry of Commerce said in a statement on Sunday.
The US Department of Treasury published a list of newly sanctioned entities on Friday, which included Russian nationals and companies listed in Hong Kong and mainland China. The department said penalties would target those that provided products and services enabling Russia to sustain its war effort against Ukraine and evade sanctions, according to a statement.
Earlier this year, Chinese President Xi Jinping warned the US’s top diplomat that the US shouldn’t target or oppose China. At the time, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said the Asian nation was Russia’s main supplier of military machine tools and a compound used in munitions and rocket propellant.
The new US penalties also targeted liquefied natural gas ships linked to Russia, including tankers believed to have loaded at the Arctic LNG 2 project, which has already been sanctioned by the US.
Reuters journalists wounded in Russian strike on Kramatorsk
Two Reuters journalists were wounded and a third was missing after an apparent Russian missile strike on Kramatorsk in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.
Reuters reported that the three were part of a six-person team staying at the Hotel Sapphire in the war-torn city, which is about 20km from the frontline. Ukraine hasn’t specified the journalists’ affiliation.
“One of our colleagues is unaccounted for, while another two have been taken to hospital for treatment,” said the news agency.
Russia fired what was preliminarily assessed to have been an Iskander ballistic missile at a residential area of the city late on Saturday night, striking houses and a hotel where the journalists were staying, the Ukrainian Prosecutor-General’s Office said on Telegram.
The prosecutor’s office said it had opened an investigation into the strike.
The journalists, ages 38 and 40 years, suffered concussion, broken limbs, cuts and other wounds, said Ukrainian officials said. The third was missing in debris as search efforts continued.
Heorhii Tykhyi, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s foreign ministry, called the strike deliberate. “Targeted strikes on media have become Russia’s systemic war tactic,” Tykhyi said on X.
Russia attacked Ukraine with eight missiles overnight, at the tail end of Ukrainian Independence Day, Air Force commander Mykola Oleshchuk said on Telegram. Most of the missiles and eight out of nine drones were intercepted.
Russia has fired around 10,000 missiles and more than 33,000 glide bombs at Ukraine since it started its full-scale invasion in February 2022, Zelensky said in social media posts on Sunday.
Ukraine jittery over funding delays from frozen Russian assets
Ukrainian officials are growing wary over delays in finalising a deal that would unlock $50-billion in support by harnessing the profits of frozen Russian central bank assets, according to people familiar with the matter.
Those funds are intended to flow to Kyiv by the end of the year, according to a Group of Seven agreement in June that foresaw a loan syndicate to be paid back by profits generated over time by some $280-billion in frozen Russian funds.
But the implementation of the plan has been snarled by demands made by the US and the risk of Hungary slowing down any EU-wide decision on support for Ukraine or sanctions against Russia, according to the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity as talks take place behind closed doors.
The financing would provide badly needed support for Ukraine as the war reaches the 2½-year mark. Ukrainian forces are struggling to halt a grinding Russian advance in the east while moving resources to a new front in Russia’s western Kursk region after its surprise incursion this month.
While the timeframe for the G7 deal stretched to the end of the year, Ukraine would require a decision next month, when a funding review by the International Monetary Fund would entail assurances that Kyiv’s budget requirements were met, said one of the people.
“We need a real mechanism,” said Zelensky on Wednesday. “The relevant discussions have been ongoing for too long, and we finally need decisions.”
Ukraine’s allies froze the Central Bank of Russia assets, most of which are held in Europe, after the Kremlin’s forces invaded in February 2022, with the West demanding that the funds be used to compensate for damages and to help rebuild Ukraine after the war.
Implementation of the G7 arrangement has hit a snag over US concerns about the fact that the EU needs to renew the asset freeze every six months along with broader sanctions targeting Moscow. The US has asked for more durable assurances that would ease concerns in President Joe Biden’s administration over signing off on the loan without approval by Congress.
A senior Biden administration official, who asked not to be identified discussing private deliberations, said the US wanted assurances from allies that the Russian assets would remain immobilised until there was a just peace deal and Russia paid for damage caused in the invasion. If that happened, the official said, the US was confident the money could start being distributed by the end of the year.
Modi signals respect for Ukrainian sovereignty during Kyiv visit
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi signalled his backing for Ukrainian sovereignty within its internationally recognised borders even as he stood by his call for a diplomatic resolution to Russia’s war with the nation.
The comments, made during the Indian leader’s first visit to Kyiv since the war began, were among his most direct statements on the fallout of Russia’s full-scale invasion 2½ years ago. Even as Ukraine has sought India’s support in driving back Russian aggression, Modi has refrained from criticising the Kremlin’s attack.
“I want to assure you and the world of India’s respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Modi told Zelensky during their meeting, which lasted well longer than scheduled. “Solutions can be found through dialogue and diplomacy — and we must move in that direction with both sides with no time to waste,” he said.
Modi’s arrival — the first by an Indian premier to Ukraine since its 1991 independence amid the collapse of the Soviet Union — followed his meeting with Putin last month. Belying the frustration among Ukrainian officials, the Indian and Ukrainian leaders embraced during the visit and Zelensky showed Modi an exhibit of children killed in the war.
Two months ago, India was among nations at a June summit meeting in Switzerland that didn’t sign a final statement, a blow to Ukraine’s bid to broaden global support. On Friday, Zelensky expressed his hope that India would sign on to the communique.
As the West has expressed outrage over Russia’s attack on its neighbour, India has been among nations of the Global South that have sought to maintain political and economic links with Moscow, which supplies India with cheap oil and weapons.
Modi’s Moscow visit last month irked US officials — Zelensky called it a major blow to peace efforts — particularly since it occurred on the same day that a deadly Russian missile strike hit a children’s hospital in Kyiv.
Modi said that he spoke to Putin — “looking him in the eye” — during the visit to the Russian capital and told him that “this is not the era for war.
“I spoke my mind clearly that the solution to any problem cannot be found on the battlefield,” Modi said in Kyiv.
Still, Modi didn’t express a commitment to Ukraine’s peace blueprint, which aims to mount a global front to exert pressure on Russia to accede to Kyiv’s demands, including full withdrawal from Ukrainian territory. DM