Ukraine has lost nearly 40% of the territory that kyiv’s troops had controlled since last August while Russia has reinforced its troops there to nearly 60,000 men. However, it still controls enough to be able to use it as a bargaining chip during peace negotiations.
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With our correspondent in Ukraine, Emmanuelle Chaze
In Ukraine, all eyes have been on the Kursk operations since Ukrainian troops faced a late Russian counterattack. The Kremlin army took four months before repeating a tactic that worked on the Eastern Front: that of repeated infantry assaults at the cost of heavy losses to allow advances.
L’Ukraine has thus lost more than 40% of the territory of the Russian region, according to a high-ranking military source cited by the Reuters news agency. “ At maximum we controlled about 1 376 square kilometers, but this territory is of course smaller today. The enemy multiplies counterattacks “, said the source.
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The source, who is from Ukraine’s General Staff, said Russia had deployed some 59,000 troops to the Kursk region since kyiv’s forces swept into Russian territory, catching Moscow off guard after two years and half full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
A bargaining chip
However, the announcement of territorial losses for Ukraine in the Kursk region does not mean, for the moment, a rout of the Ukrainian army in this region since it still controls approximately 800 km2 of territory, according to kyiv, 600 according to external observers.
This portion of Russian territory could prove important in the event of negotiations because Ukraine could use it as a bargaining chip, whether it involves recovering Ukrainian territories illegally occupied by Russia or to establish a gray zone on the Russian side of the border.
The use this week of Western missiles in the Kursk region to neutralize Russian military targets shows the importance of these Ukrainian operations in kyiv’s strategy, but this strategy can only prove successful if Ukraine succeeds. to maintain control over this part of Russian territory.
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