Ukraine's operation in Kursk difficult but according to plan, says Zelenskyy

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that Ukraine’s operation into Russia’s Kursk region is complex but going according to plan. The incursion, which started in early August aimed to protect the northeastern city of Sumy and capture Russian soldiers for potential prisoner exchanges.

The first prisoner swap involving those Kursk-area POWs took place on Saturday with each side exchanging 115 soldiers.

“I am looking very positively how this operation is going,” Zelenskiy told journalists in Kyiv as reported by Bloomberg, standing alongside Poland’s president and Lithuania’s prime minister, who visited the capital to mark Ukrainian Independence Day.

“The operation is complex, it is important that it is going according to our plan,” the Kyiv Independent quoted Zelensky as saying. “Those who seek to sow evil on our land will reap its fruits on their own soil,” Zelenskyy said in his address. “And those who sought to turn our lands into a buffer zone should now worry that their own country doesn’t become a buffer federation. This is how independence responds.”

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Ukraine quickly seized considerable Russian territory, including scores of small towns, and captured hundreds of Russian soldiers, part of an effort to counter Russia’s grinding advances in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region.

The Ukrainian military now claims to hold 1,200 square kilometers (480 square miles) of Russian territory, and in the past week, has launched drone attacks on strategic bridges and on Russian airfields and drone bases.

A visit to Kyiv by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who met Friday with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, was being closely watched. There are Ukrainian hopes that Modi, who has maintained cordial ties and economic relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, could play a role in forging a mediated peace.

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The incursion into Russia has highlighted Russian vulnerabilities but also further stretched Ukrainian forces, who already were fighting on a frontline running hundreds of kilometers (miles). It has possibly compromised Ukraine’s ability to hold back Russian forces who have slowly but steadily gained ground in the Donetsk region, diverting Ukrainian forces who otherwise could bolster defense there.

It’s not clear how long Ukraine will be able to hold the land it has seized in Russia.

The Russian Defense Ministry on Friday said that its troops turned back Ukrainian attempts to advance on the Kursk region’s villages of Borki and Malaya Loknya. The ministry also reported taking out a reconnaissance and sabotage group near Kamyshevka, 20 kilometers (12 miles) north of Sudzha, which the Ukrainians took.

Russia launched an offensive in the Kharkiv region in May that led to some gains but soon stalled. Fighting in that area has diminished as the Russian army has concentrated its efforts in Donetsk, part of the industrial Donbas region that Moscow formally annexed but does not fully control.

Russia’s springtime advance on Kharkiv was seen as a sign that Ukraine’s position was weakening amid the delays of Western military aid.