Ukraine’s Zelensky says incursion into Russia part of plan to end war

“The main point … is forcing Russia to end the war,” Zelensky said. “We really want justice for Ukraine. And if this plan is accepted — and second, if it is executed — we believe that the main goal will be reached.”

He declined to provide details of his plan.

Part of the border region of Kursk, including the town of Sudzha, was overtaken in a surprise attack on Aug. 6, raising spirits for many Ukrainians frustrated by their military’s inability to reclaim land lost to Russia — though it raised questions about what the end game is for the operation and whether it will come at the cost of land in Ukraine’s east.

Ukrainian commander in chief Oleksandr Syrsky said that the blitz had so far resulted in the capture of 100 settlements, along with the 594 Russian soldiers. But he said the situation remains “quite difficult.”

Ukraine is holding some 500 square miles in Kursk and is still advancing and “dealing palpable damage,” Syrsky said. But Russia has moved more than 30,000 soldiers to the area, many from the battlefields in Ukraine’s south, and there are about “50 clashes with the enemy” daily.

The most intense fighting, though, has continued in eastern Ukraine, where Russia’s steady advance to conquer the entire industrial Donbas region moves forward. Key to this battle is the logistical hub of Pokrovsk at the junction of two major roads. Ukraine’s military was “doing everything possible to stabilize the situation in this direction,” Syrsky said.

As these battles have raged, Ukraine suffered another wave of drone and missile strikes Tuesday, which killed seven people, injured 47 — including three children — and smashed a hotel often frequented by journalists.

The attack came days after a hotel in Kramatorsk was struck over the weekend, killing a security adviser for the Reuters news agency and injuring two of its journalists, part of Russia’s biggest air attack on Ukraine since the start of the war. That attack, which came soon after Ukraine’s independence day, targeted power infrastructure and sparked outages across the country.

Zelensky confirmed Ukraine had used recently-acquired F-16 fighter jets to shoot down some of the Russian missiles, which the country had long insisted would be a game changer in the war.

Even before Zelensky’s announcement about a new plan to end the war, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Tuesday dismissed Ukraine’s attempts at negotiations.

“If the West is interested in normalizing the situation in Europe, it is necessary to sit down at the negotiating table without paperwork in the form of the ‘Zelensky formula,’” he said referring to an earlier peace summit that did not include Russia.

Russia has also accused Ukrainian forces of endangering its nuclear power plant in the town of Kursk, about 25 miles from the front line. The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency is inspecting the site Tuesday.

“Regarding the operation of the nuclear power plant, what I’ve seen is that the station is operating in very close to normal conditions,” Rafael Grossi said in a news conference. “However, it is clear that all of that does not deny the fact that there has been activity near here. I was informed about the impact of drones. I was shown some of the remnants of those and the signs of the impact they had.”

He said that while equating the situation at the Kursk plant with Chernobyl was “an exaggeration,” he did add that “it is the same type of reaction and there is no specific protection and this is very very important.”

Russia’s FSB security service also opened criminal cases against seven foreign journalists for what it maintains is their illegal crossing into Russian territory to report from Kursk.

Citing the FSB, Russian state news wires reported on Tuesday that additional cases had been opened against a correspondent for German broadcaster Deutsche Welle and a journalist form Ukraine’s 1+1 TV channel following their reports from Sudzha.

Earlier this month, the FSB reported that they had initiated criminal proceedings against journalists from CNN and Italian broadcaster RAI.

Serhii Korolchuck and Anastacia Galouchka in Kyiv, Natalia Abbakumova in Riga, Latvia and Francesca Ebel and Paul Schemm in London contributed to this report.