Kursk incursion will not stop Russian forces' advance in east Ukraine: Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Monday that the Ukrainian forces' incursion into Russia's Kursk region will not stop Russia’s armed forces from advancing in eastern Ukraine, vowing to deal with the Ukrainian "bandits" on Russian territory.

"Their calculation was to stop our offensive actions in key parts of the Donbas," Putin told a group of students in the republic of Tyva on Monday, adding that "The result is known... They did not achieve stopping our advance in the Donbas."

The Ukrainian forces' attack on the Kursk region on August 6 took Russia by surprise, with Kiev forces seizing control of dozens of towns and villages near the border in an attempt to divert Russian forces away from the front line in eastern Ukraine. The surprise incursion has so far displaced around 130,000 people.

Putin also acknowledged that despite Kiev's failure to implement its objective, the Ukrainian offensive has caused some difficulties for the local residents who were forced to evacuate from their homes in Russia's Kursk region.

"People are going through difficult experiences, especially in the Kursk region. But the main aim that the enemy had -- to stop our offensive in Donbas -- it did not achieve," Putin said.

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He emphasized that Moscow is presently seeing advances at a “rate that we did not have for a long time.”

“Of course, we have to deal with these bandits that entered the territory of the Russian Federation, specifically the Kursk region, attempting to destabilize the situation in the border areas,” Putin said.

In the meantime, Russia launched a barrage of drones and cruise and ballistic missiles at Kiev and other Ukrainian cities on Monday.

Ukrainian officials confirmed attacks in Kiev, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Poltava, Mykolaiv and Zaporizhzhia regions.

Head of Kiev’s military administration said more than 10 cruise missiles, about 10 ballistic missiles, and a drone fired at the Ukrainian capital and its suburbs had been destroyed.

Russia's attack came a day after the Ukrainian forces launched a heavy drone attack on Russian territory in which its air defense forces intercepted and destroyed 158 Ukrainian drones targeting multiple Russian targets.

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Meanwhile, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Sunday that its troops had liberated two more settlements in the Donetsk region, including Ptyche, just 21 km southeast of Pokrovsk, and were "continuing to advance deep into the enemy defenses.”

Two-and-a-half years have passed since the conflict turned into a full-fledged war between the two neighboring countries.

Russian troops launched the special military operation on February 24, 2022, aiming to liberate the Donbas region where the People's Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk were suffering from regular attacks on them by Ukrainian forces.

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