Ukraine’s Kursk operation triggers Russian push in Sumy region - Ukrainian MP

MP Roman Kostenko, secretary of the parliamentary committee on national security, defense, and intelligence, said this for Radio Svoboda.

“What happened was not planned. No one intended for the Armed Forces to withdraw from the Kursk region and for the Russians to advance. The battlefield dictated that. If we could hold the line toward Kursk, we would have, but unfortunately, we couldn’t,” Kostenko said.

According to him, the Russian forces’ advance deeper into the Sumy region is “one of the risks we had to understand” when planning the Kursk operation.

“We expected to hold the defense in the Kursk region. But somewhere the command made a mistake, and we experienced the counter-effect of this operation. These were the risks we had to understand when we started it – if the Russians pushed us back, they would attack this direction,” he mentioned.

Kostenko also added that Russia planned to redeploy its troops from Kursk to the Pokrovsk direction, but the decision to advance into the Sumy region, according to him, was made “on the fly.”

• Russia is creating extra tension along the Ukrainian border to force the Ukrainian Defense Forces to move reserves away from other fronts.
• On May 29, Oleh Hryhorov, head of the Sumy Regional Military Administration, reported that the situation on the frontline is fluid, and the Russians are trying to establish a foothold in the border villages.
• Russia's advance in Bilovody and Loknya in the Sumy region is not the end, and Russian activity is intensifying every day. Constant pressure from the infantry is taking its toll, and previous successes are motivating the Russians to build on them.