The White House has pressed Kyiv on its “objectives” after Russian officials claimed that about “1,000” Ukrainian soldiers have launched a major cross-border attack that has entered its third day, US officials said.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the US was looking into the reports of the surprise Ukrainian counter-attack in Russia’s Kursk region and reaching out to its allies in Kyiv “to learn more about their objectives.”
“We’re going to reach out to them to see what their objective is and continue to stay focused,” Jean-Pierre said Wednesday. “We are going to continue to stay focused on making sure they have what they need to defend themselves against Russia’s aggression.”
Ukrainian forces have so far advanced as much as six miles into western Russia, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank.
The surprise incursion left Russian President Vladimir Putin scrambling to respond on Wednesday, with Moscow officials claiming Kyiv’s army has not made significant advancements.
“The enemy has not advanced a single meter, on the contrary, it is retreating,” Kursk deputy governor Andrei Belostotsky told state media Thursday.
“Attempts by individual units to break through deep into the territory in the Kursk direction are being suppressed,” the Russian Defense Ministry added.
Russia’s claims on the cross-border attack, its numbers and its advancements could not be independently verified.
Ukraine has remained mum on the goal of the operation, with previous reports indicating that Kyiv’s forces made it as far as eight miles over the border to seize Russian settlements in Sudzha, home to an important pipeline that supplies gas to the rest of Europe.
Myhailo Podolyak, a top adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said Thursday that the border attacks may “scare” Russia into rethinking its future actions in the war.
“When will it be possible to conduct a negotiation process in the way that we can push them or get something from them? Only when the war is not going on according to their scenarios,” Podolyak said.
The incursion would be the first time the Ukrainian military has been deployed in such significant numbers on Russian soil.
Analysts believe Kyiv’s goal in the attack could be to draw Russian reserves to that area, potentially weakening the Kremlin’s offense in Ukraine’s Donetsk region where Moscow has made significant gains.
The ploy may be working as Putin has called on his cabinet to coordinate assistance to the Kursk region, which lies about 320 miles from Moscow.
Putin slammed the assault as a “large-scale provocation” and claimed it involved “indiscriminate shelling of civilian buildings, residential houses, ambulances with different types of weapons.”
