Ukraine’s daring ‘mini-invasion’ of southern Russia is not expected to push any further into the country, Western officials have said.
Speaking for the first time about the surprise incursion, they suggested that the Kyiv regime will chiefly aim to hold on to the territory it has already seized.
Officials indicated that the area of the Kursk region involved could be used in a potential trade-off by president Volodymyr Zelensky to recover Ukrainian land captured illegally by Moscow.
There are fresh hopes that negotiations could end the war after India’s prime minister Narendra Modi visited Kyiv yesterday.
Mr Modi is a key figure diplomatically due to his close relationship with Vladimir Putin but he was widely criticised last month for hugging the Russian leader during a Moscow visit which coincided with a missile attack on a Ukrainian children’s hospital.
The Indian leader, who has offered to act as an intermediary in any peace talks, said yesterday: ‘The road to resolution can only be found through dialogue and diplomacy. And we should move in that direction without wasting any time. Both sides should sit together to find a way out of this crisis.’
Although Mr Modi again refused to publicly condemn Russia’s 2022 invasion, he said he supported Ukrainian sovereignty.
Meanwhile, Western officials insisted Ukraine’s rate of advance in Russia was ‘slowing’. They said: ‘It is too early to tell how it will play out, whether the Russians will push them out. But the incursion has already been a success, lifting the mood in Kyiv and changing the narrative.’
Russia is yet to launch a significant response to what was the biggest incursion into its territory since the Second World War.
But the Russian ambassador to the US, Anatoly Antonov, warned yesterday: ‘I tell you sincerely that the president has made a decision. I am firmly convinced that everyone will be sincerely punished for what has happened in the Kursk region.’
Western officials said five brigades of Russian troops were being reassigned to reinforce Kursk. They estimate Russia is losing 1,000 troops every day.
In a separate development, Moscow suspended a ferry service between south Russia and Crimea after a Ukrainian attack hit a vessel loaded with rail cars carrying fuel.