Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky warned Russia that “war is coming home” Russia as Ukrainian forces forged ahead with their biggest cross-border attack since the war began.
“Russia brought war to others, and now it is coming home,” Zelensky said Monday night in his regularly scheduled evening address.
His remarks come after Ukrainian soldiers smashed through the Russian border a week ago in a surprise attack that forced the evacuation of at least 200,000 Russians and left President Vladimir Putin red-faced.
Zelensky argued the area currently under attack in Russia’s neighboring Kursk border region is where the Kremlin had launched strikes early in the more than two-year war, adding it is “absolutely fair to destroy Russian terrorists where they are.”
“Russia must be forced to make peace if Putin wants to fight so badly,” a defiant Zelensky said.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s top military commander, Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, had revealed earlier Monday that his troops had since seized control of roughly 400 square miles in the under-attack Kursk region.
“The troops are fulfilling their tasks. Fighting continues actually along the entire front line. The situation is under our control,” Syrskyi said.
Russian forces are still scrambling to respond to the lightning Ukrainian incursion after almost a week of fierce fighting.
Moscow on Tuesday struck back at Ukrainian troops with missiles, drones and airstrikes — which one senior commander claimed had halted Ukraine’s advance.
Russia’s defense ministry also published footage of bombers striking at what it said were Ukrainian troops in the Kursk border region and of infantry storming Ukrainian positions.
“The uncontrolled ride of the enemy has already been halted,” said Maj. Gen. Apti Alaudinov, commander of the Chechen Akhmat special forces unit.
“The enemy is already aware that the blitzkrieg that it planned did not work out.”
Kursk residents have started recording videos lamenting that they’ve had to flee the border area as they pleaded with Putin for help.
Putin, for his part, has decried the attack as an attempt by Kyiv to stop Moscow’s offensive in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region and gain leverage in possible future peace talks.
“It’s obvious that the enemy will keep trying to destabilize the situation in the border zone to try to destabilize the domestic political situation in our country,” Putin said Monday, adding that Russia’s main task is to “drive the enemy out of our territories and, together with the border service, to ensure reliable cover of the state border.”
With Post wires
