An adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who like some other officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the operation, confirmed the Ukrainian military activity inside Russia and said its forces had seized about 100 square kilometers. The claim could not be independently verified.
In three days, the Zelenskyy adviser said, Ukrainian personnel advanced past towns of thousands of people, took hundreds of prisoners, and captured a gas-metering station that Russia uses for energy transactions with Hungary and Slovakia.
The Kursk offensive has put new pressure on Putin as Russian civilians have had to be evacuated under the same type of bombardment Ukrainians have endured for more than two years.
Ukrainian officials have asked Washington to let them to use long-range US ATACMS missiles to hit airfields that Russia is using to retaliate against the incursion — a decision that, if approved, could allow Kyiv to hold a portion of Kursk for some time.
"This will give them the leverage they need for negotiations with Russia — this is what it’s all about,” the Zelenskyy adviser said.
The gas metering station that Ukraine now controls is located about five miles inside Russia, the Zelenskyy adviser said. On Thursday, gas was still flowing through Sudzha, the last operational shipping point for a pipeline that carries Russian natural gas to Europe via Ukraine. The station was unlikely to be used for leverage, the adviser said, because with the pipeline running through Ukraine anyway, Kyiv could have disrupted flows at any time.
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