The Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zensky has publicly acknowledged that his troops are active in the Russian region of Belgorod.
“We continue to perform active operations in the border areas in enemy areas, and that is absolutely common – war must return to where it came from,” he said on Monday.
His comments also referred to the Russian region of Kursk, where Ukraine still has a small area last year after a great offensive. Since then, Moscow has recaptured most of the territory.
Zensky said that “the main goal” was to protect the border regions Sumy and Kharkiv in Ukraine, and to “relieve pressure” on other parts of the enormous front line, especially in the Eastern Donetsk region.
The Russian army had reported the Ukrainian attempts last month to cross to the Belgorod region – but said that such attacks had been rejected.
Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a complete invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and Moscow currently checks around 20% of the territory of Ukraine.
In his video speech, Zelensky said on Monday that he had been informed by his top commander gen Oleksandr Syrskyi about the front situation, “including our presence in the Kursk and Belgorod regions”.
Zensky thanked various army units that defend Ukraine, including the 225th Assault Regiment that was used in the Belgorod region.
“Well done, guys! I am proud of everyone who fights for Ukraine!” said the president.
He did not give any further details. It is his first explicit recognition of Ukrainian troops in Belgorod.
On March 18, Zensky had indirectly confirmed that Ukrainian troops were there.
“There is an operation there,” he said when reporters were asked to comment on a Russian defense ministerie statement that Ukrainian troops had tried to enter the western part of the Belgorod region without success.
Russia had said that all Ukrainian attempts to continue to the villages of Demidovka and Prilesye had been rejected and a cross -border raid had been prevented.
Various Russian military bloggers, however, reported fighting in Demidovka himself at the time, which is approximately two kilometers (1.2 miles) of the Ukrainian border.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), based in the US, also said in an update on March 21 that “Ukrainian forces recently made progress in Belgorod”.
“Russian Milbloggers claimed that Ukrainian troops have made progress and consolidate positions on the edge of Demidovka and Prilesye,” said ISW, adding that such claims were not confirmed.
In the past two days, Russian military bloggers had reported that Ukrainian troops withdrew from the Demidovka area.
The operation of Ukraine in Belgorod is supposed to be on a much smaller scale compared to his actions in Kursk, where KYIV seized a number of villages at some point, including the regional city of Sudzha.
Zensky and his top commanders have repeatedly said that such raids have forced Moscow to re -use troops from the Donetsk region, where Russian troops have made stable – although slowly – progress in recent months.
Ukraine could also hope to exchange the Russian areas that possess the possession for parts of Ukrainian regions that are occupied by Moscow in any future peace negotiations that are urged by the US.
A number of war analysts – both in Ukraine and in the West – have questioned the military care provider of Kyiv’s operations on Russian soil, pointing to reported high combat victims and difficulties for weapons.
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