Russia wants the territory taken by Ukraine in Kursk back before negotiations to end the war, but Ukraine will not back down

President of Russia Vladimir Putin Remchukov added that he did not want Kursk to be used as a bargaining chip and did not want to be forced to give up Ukrainian territory that Russia had seized since its invasion. He said Putin’s recent speech that any agreement should reflect “facts on the ground” pointed to Russia’s hopes of recapturing Kursk.

Last week, the Kremlin dramatically stepped up its maximalist rhetoric on peace talks, implying that it would not be willing to make any more concessions to the incoming Trump administration than it did to President Joe Biden.

In an interview on Russian state television on Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov appeared to pre-emptively reject any proposal to freeze the conflict and existing front lines (as suggested by those around Trump), calling the proposal “even worse” than Minsk. He described it as. Agreements made following the war in Eastern Ukraine in 2014.

Russian military blogger and propagandist Mikhail Zvinchuk, founder of the Telegram channel Rybar, said Trump may try to pressure Moscow with Ukraine’s occupation of Kursk, but he expects this to happen again in the coming weeks or months.

“In any case, I believe that the Kursk issue will be resolved before Trump takes office,” he said, describing the latest Russian attack as the third wave of a sustained counter-offensive that he claimed had disabled Ukraine’s reserves and logistics in the border region of Sumy. It enabled Russia to recapture many settlements in Ukraine and Russia.

Ukrainian forces captured 1,000 to 1,500 square kilometers of territory in the first two weeks of the Kursk operation in August, said analyst Pasi Paroinen of Black Bird Group, an open-source intelligence analysis collective based in Helsinki. Russia has steadily counterattacked since then and has predicted that the area held by Ukraine will become even smaller in the coming days, with the offensive now continuing from three directions.

It’s not smooth sailing

However, according to Ukrainian soldiers, the latest attack did not go smoothly for the Russians. They say that after more than a week of continuous fighting, Russia has made only minor gains and lost significant amounts of troops and equipment.

Despite mounting pressure, Ukrainians say they are largely holding the line.

Oleksandr, 39, who works on intelligence in the Kursk region of the 82nd Brigade, said Ukrainian troops have destroyed more than 50 Russian vehicles, including armored personnel carriers and tanks, in recent days. He said Russian soldiers continue to repeat their mistakes, such as advancing on roads controlled by Ukrainian firepower, missing turns and even firing on their own infantry positions.

He himself witnessed the killing of captured soldiers in real time via drone footage, amid constant reports of Russian brutal treatment of captive Ukrainians. He spoke on condition that he be identified only by his first name due to military rules.

On Monday, Oleksandr, in footage later confirmed, saw Russian soldiers take up a Ukrainian position, capture two soldiers, and then shoot them dead. Washington Post.

In retaliation, the Ukrainian command center launched a number of drones at the Russians to try to kill Russian troops and destroy their vehicles, Oleksandr said.

During those few minutes, “the Russians executing our detainees were our top priority target,” Oleksandr said, adding that Ukraine later retook the position. “But you don’t have time to think about it too much because you have a job to do; “You have other Russians to kill.”

Speaking via video chat from a bunker between missions in Kursk, Artem Efanov, a drone operator with the 82nd Brigade, said he saw Russian troops trapped in swamps, swamps and rivers, with muddy terrain making it difficult for them to advance successfully. .

“We are holding the lines,” Efanov said. “It has become more difficult, but we have the means.”

Efanov said recent rare protests by Kursk’s displaced residents showed that Ukraine’s aggression was causing significant internal problems for Russia. He said the latest Russian attack probably had less to do with Trump and more to do with Putin’s “political ambition to say ‘we can deal with this, we can liberate the Kursk region in three days,’ just like they planned to invade Kiev.” in three days”.

Verified photos and videos from more than half a dozen villages north and south of Sudzha Mail Last week, Russian vehicles appeared to face fierce opposition from Ukrainians as they attempted to advance towards Kursk. A drone video recorded on Wednesday showed a Russian MT-LB, a type of armored vehicle, being hit as it drove south of the village of Novoivanovka. Soldiers emerge from the carrier in flames as the vehicle continues to head towards an intersection before crashing again. Two more soldiers leave the burning vehicle and run to take shelter in the forest.

Other images show the results of clashes and attacks on small convoys of Russian armored vehicles. “The Russians are increasing the tempo of their operations and increasing the size and scale of their armored attacks, possibly in an attempt to overwhelm Ukrainian defenders and drive Ukrainian troops from Kursk,” said George Barros, a geospatial and Russian analyst at the Institute. War Study.

Putin’s winning streak

While Kiev has publicly rejected suggestions of peace in exchange for land, it is also eyeing Trump’s incoming presidency and wants to keep Kursk on the table as much as Russia wants to turn it down.

But doubts are growing as to why Putin, whose forces are advancing on every front, is considering negotiations that could get in the way of his main goal of gaining control of all of Ukraine.

“Putin probably believes he is on a winning streak and why would he negotiate now, his demands will probably be extremely high,” said Camille Grand, a former NATO deputy secretary general and now a distinguished policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. Relationships.

Time will tell whether Putin’s statements of maximalist demands are a negotiation tactic or whether he “means this because he has done too much damage in this war and reaching a compromise would not be acceptable to him.”

Gerard Araud, a former negotiator, said that in any move toward talks, much will depend on “whether Putin wants to take his chips and more or less accept Trump’s offers, or whether Trump will come to the conclusion that he will abandon Ukraine, so let’s move on He said it would depend on. French ambassador to Washington.

Rob Lee, a senior fellow at the Philadelphia-based Foreign Policy Research Institute, said Ukraine probably sees Kursk as a potential future trump card in negotiations, but on the downside, the operation places a significant burden on its military.

Analysts said losses in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region accelerated from mid-August to mid-September as experienced units abandoned their positions and focused on the Kursk operation.

Russian forces inside Ukraine have advanced faster in the past three months than at any time since 2022, Lee said.

Vegetation is already thinning as winter approaches, making camouflage even more difficult in a war where drones are already tracking every move. Muddy marshes may soon freeze over. Lee warned that Ukraine must decide where to prioritize its limited troops and weapons.

“Where are they sending reinforcements? “Because if you focus on holding Kursk, it could put other parts of the front at greater risk,” he said.