Ukrainian MP: General Staff’s strategy goes beyond current actions in Kursk region

This was stated by Roman Kostenko, Secretary of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on National Security, Defense, and Intelligence, and SBU Colonel, as reported by Espreso correspondent Kateryna Halko.

“If we can inflict such losses on them that they are unable to advance any further, they will definitely have to bring up their reserves. At the moment, we see that their priority is still Donbas, and they are willing to make sacrifices in this context or accept what is happening in the Kursk direction. But we must understand that what we see is not the entire plan that our General Staff has,” he said.

According to Kostenko, one of the objectives of the operation in the Kursk region is to force Russia to move its troops out of Ukraine. At the same time, he emphasized that Russia has a firm position not to withdraw soldiers from the Pokrovsk direction.

“We see that Russia has indeed started to move some troops. We know about the 200th Brigade from the Kramatorsk direction, and we know about the 80th Brigade from the Prydniprovskyi direction. But they have a firm position not to withdraw troops from the Pokrovsk direction. This is a strategic direction for them, and we now see that even though they realize they have no reserves to recapture Kursk, they are still focusing on the territory of Donetsk,” explained SBU Colonel.

Russia has to either declare mobilization or give up on advancing in Ukraine

According to Kostenko, Russia has to either declare mobilization or give up on advancing in eastern Ukraine in order to move its forces to the Kursk region.

Commenting on Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin's order to push the Ukrainian Forces out of the Kursk region by October 1, Kostenko said that it would be difficult to achieve.

“I’m not sure that Putin is aware of the entire situation... We have combat units there with battle experience, while Putin has units that he pulled from different directions. Now, he needs to find combat units somewhere that can stand up to ours and throw them into the fight. The only place he can do this is in the areas of active combat operations, which are the East and South. The question here is either further mobilization (which would require a temporary cessation of hostilities and preparation for it) or the abandonment of some eastern sector,” he explained.

The secretary of the parliamentary committee on national security, defense, and intelligence added that it is currently difficult to determine whether Russia has military units capable of influencing events in Kursk.

“We’ll see where they will withdraw troops from - whether it’s the Chinese border or the Far East. There is already information that personnel servicing the airfields there are being retrained,” Kostenko concluded.

• Espreso correspondent Artem Lahutenko managed to visit all sectors in the Kursk region and find out how the Ukrainian Armed Forces' breakthrough took place.