Ukraine’s Kursk operation aims to prevent Russian advance on Sumy, Kharkiv regions - Zelenskyy

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy said this in an interview with Reuters.

"And this was one of the preventive steps: to stop the Russians from capturing Sumy in the north and Kharkiv in the east. It was in this region that our military took preventive actions - they launched the Kursk offensive. Their task was to disrupt the occupation of our cities. And our brigades took successful steps. They executed everything beautifully. It was very dangerous," he commented.

Zelenskyy assured that Ukraine’s leadership understood that Putin would return. What he failed to achieve in Kyiv in 2022, he would attempt again, the president noted, recalling Russia’s offensive operations in the Kharkiv and Sumy regions.

"He wanted to make another major breakthrough and capture at least two regions, each with a population of over a million," Zelenskyy added.

He also emphasized that due to this operation, Russia redeployed many troops from the east and south of Ukraine due to pressure from Ukrainian forces.

Zelenskyy reported that the Defense Forces advanced 2.5 km in one day and lost 230 people in the Kursk region: "And why did they do this? I have always said that the Kursk operation is a series of preventive strikes by the Russians."

According to him, Ukrainian troops struck a command post in the Kursk region on February 3, killing many officers there.

"I was told that about 20 officers were killed. Among them were senior officers from North Korea and Russia," Zelenskyy concluded.

• On Thursday, February 6, Ukrainian forces conducted successful counteroffensive operations in Russia's Kursk region.