Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has claimed that Kiev troops are in full control of the Russian city of Sunja.
The city in question is strategically important as it hosts a metering station for Russian gas arriving from western Siberia, which then flows through Ukrainian pipelines to Europe, accounting for around 3% of European gas imports.
“Some smart people in Kiev thought that they should take this hub city, and so the Russian army would have to destroy it to take it back,” Andrei Fedorov, Russia’s former deputy foreign minister, told a television program state television.
“This means that gas deliveries to Europe will stop, due to the actions of Russia, not Ukraine. By the way, this will hit Hungary and Slovakia very hard,” he added.
However, so far there has been no sign of the gas flow stopping.
“With the help of the West, the Ukrainian counterattack”
At the same time, Kremlin adviser Nikolai Patrushev said today that the West is directly involved in planning Ukraine’s attack on Russia’s Kursk region.
Patrushev, in an interview with the Izvestia newspaper, argued that statements by the United States that it was not involved in the attack were not true.
“The operation in the Kursk region was also planned with the participation of NATO and Western special services,” Patrushev said, according to the newspaper.
“Statements by the US leadership that it is not involved in Kiev’s crimes in the Kursk region are not true … Without their involvement and direct support, Kiev would not have ventured onto Russian soil.”
The White House said Ukraine had no advance notice of its raid and that Washington had no involvement in the operation.
Russia’s Defense Ministry released video images showing US weapons in Russia’s Kursk region.
For his part, the president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, urged Russia and Ukraine to end the conflict, after the capture of the city of Sunja, on Russian territory, by Ukrainian forces.
Speaking on Russian state television, a week after Ukraine launched its invasion of Russia’s Kursk region, Lukashenko said the only people who want the war between Russia and Ukraine to continue are “high-ranking figures of American origin”.
“Let’s sit down at the negotiating table and end this fight,” he said and noted that “neither the Ukrainian people, nor the Russians, nor the Belarusians need it. They (the West) need it.”
Kyiv controls 82 communities
Ukraine controls 82 communities and 1,150 square kilometers in the Russian border region of Kursk, Ukrainian army chief Oleksandr Shirsky said today, on the ninth day of an unprecedentedly large-scale Ukrainian offensive on Russian soil.
“In total, since the start of operations in the Kursk region, our troops have advanced to a depth of 35 kilometers,” the officer said during a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“We have taken control of 1,150 square kilometers of land and 82 communities,” he added, describing the situation as “under control.” In addition, Oleksandr Shirki said that Ukraine installed a military command in the Russian region of Kursk.
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