Ukraine's top commander said Monday that kyiv controlled about 1,000 square kilometers (600 square miles) of Russia's Kursk region, his first public comments since Ukraine launched its biggest cross-border attack in nearly two and a half years of full-scale war.
As Russia is still struggling to repel the incursion seven days after it began, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy released a video clip of Oleksandr Syrskyi, the head of its armed forces, delivering a report on the fighting.
“We continue to conduct an offensive operation in the Kursk region. We currently control about 1,000 square kilometers of the territory of the Russian Federation,” he said.
Zelenskiy said the meeting of senior officials had ordered the preparation of a “humanitarian plan” for the area.
The acting governor of Russia's Kursk region, Alexei Smirnov, said Ukraine controlled 28 settlements and the incursion was about 12 kilometres deep and 40 kilometres wide.
In a statement, the Ukrainian leader said the Defense Ministry and diplomats have been ordered to submit a list of “necessary actions” to secure permission from kyiv's Western allies to use long-range weapons to attack Russia.
Defense Minister Rustem Umerov urged Paris on Monday to lift a ban on Western weapons attacks on military targets in Russia during a call with his French counterpart Sebastien Lecornu, according to the Ukrainian statement.
