Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky declared on Thursday that Russia “should feel what it has done to his country,” apparently obliquely referencing an ongoing reported invasion of Russian territory by Ukrainian troops that began this week.
The Russian government claimed on Tuesday that Ukrainian forces entered Kursk Oblast, a previously uncontested Russian territory, and began expanding attacks into towns near the Ukrainian border. On Friday, the Russian government declared a “federal-level” state of emergency in Kursk and announced a robust military reinforcement of the region to respond to the new Ukrainian operation.
Zelensky himself has not directly addressed the reports of Ukrainian military activity in Kursk. In remarks published by the state outlet Ukrinform on Thursday, however, he reiterated that the war “was not our choice” and that Russia must “feel what it has done” to his country.
“Ukrainians know how to achieve their goals. And achieving the goals at war was not our choice. Russia brought the war to our land, and it should feel what it has done,” Zelensky said. “We strive to achieve our goals as soon as possible in peacetime – under just peace conditions. And it will happen.”
Zelensky’s comments have been widely interpreted to be a reference to the decision to move troops into Kursk, forcing Russia to redirect attention away from the Ukrainian territories it has colonized.
Elsewhere on Thursday, Zelensky said that he had received an update from his top military commander, Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskiy, and celebrated the developments of the past week as “exactly what our country needs.”
While Zelensky has not directly referred to Kursk, one of his top advisers, Mykhaylo Podolyak, posted a message on Twitter on Thursday expressing appreciation to the international community for not condemning the incursion.
“Absolutely calm, balanced, objective, and based on an understanding of the spirit of international law and the principles of defensive warfare – this is the international response to the events in the Kursk region of the Rf [Russian Federation],” Podolyak wrote, adding that “a significant part of the global community considers Rf a legitimate target for any operations and types of weapons.”
The Russian government has been in irregular combat with Ukraine for more than a decade following the illegal colonization of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in 2014 but formally announced a “special operation” into Ukraine in February 2022, allegedly to “de-Nazify” the country by overthrowing Zelensky. Efforts to topple the government have failed, but Russia has greatly expanded its presence on Ukrainian territory and “annexed” four more regions of the country in September 2022: Donetsk and Luhansk, which collectively form the Donbas region, and Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.
Zelensky appeared to apply the same playbook in January, signing a decree that identified parts of Russia previously uncontested as “historically inhabited by Ukrainians.” The decree identified six oblasts, or Russian state-level divisions, as “historically” Ukrainian, including Kursk.
Kursk Gov. Aleksei Smirnov announced a local state of emergency on Wednesday after Ukrainian troops entered the oblast’s territory. Russian strongman Vladimir Putin confirmed the attack, calling it a “major provocation” and vowing to stop it. Kursk is home to a critical piece of infrastructure: the Sudzha natural gas hub, which Russia uses to send natural gas to clients in the European Union.
As of Friday, Russian officials say that at least 1,000 Ukrainian fighters are attacking Russian territory. The attack has resulted in the mass displacement of Kursk residents, reportedly in the thousands, whom Putin announced on Thursday would receive a $115 compensation for their troubles.
“The operational situation in the Kursk region remains difficult,” Kursk Gov. Smirnov said on Friday.
The government of leftist American President Joe Biden, which has subsidized the Ukrainian self-defense effort to the tune of tens of billions of dollars, has had little comment on the situation reported in Kursk. Speaking to reporters on Thursday, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Washington was “in communication with the Ukrainians” on the matter but refuse to comment on the operation itself. Miller did criticize the Russian government’s objections to the operation.
“I have seen the statements from the Russian Government. It’s a little bit rich them calling it a provocation given Russia violated Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty,” Miller said, “You said 900 days; it actually goes back much longer than that, it goes back to 2014 – and continues to illegally occupy Ukrainian territory.”
Miller confirmed that the Biden administration did not have “visibility” from Ukraine that they were going to enter Kursk.
“We did not, but it’s not unusual for the Ukrainians not to notify us of their exact tactics before – before they execute them,” Miller claimed.
Ukraine began executing the Kursk attack shortly after Zelensky spoke to former U.S. President Donald Trump in late July, their first conversation in the heat of the 2024 American presidential election .(Ukraine was also scheduled to have a presidential election in 2024, but Zelensky canceled it, calling it “absolutely irresponsible” to hold an election during war.) In that conversation, Trump said he told Zelensky he would “bring peace to the world and end the war” if elected in November. Zelensky, in turn, said he promised to hold an in-person meeting with Trump in the near future and expressed gratitude “to the United States for its help in strengthening our ability to resist Russian terror. Russian attacks on our cities and villages continue every day.”
Trump reiterated his promise to end the conflict in an interview with Breitbart News this week.
“I want to see the death stopping. There’s death and there’s destruction,” Trump told Breitbart News on Thursday. “They are destroying the whole fabric of a certain part of the world. … I will be able to get it solved. And I’d like to do it before I get to the White House after I’m president-elect.”
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