KYIV (Reuters) -Kyiv’s top general said on Monday that Ukrainian troops fighting in Russia’s Kursk region were not at risk of encirclement, despite a recent counteroffensive by Russian forces that has included North Korean troops.
In his first comments since Russia stepped up its attacks, Oleksandr Syrskyi said on Facebook that the situation was under control, but indicated that Ukrainian forces have been pulling back.
“The units are taking timely measures to manoeuvre to advantageous positions for defence,” he said.
Syrskyi said he was visiting the forces fighting on the Kursk front without specifying whether he had crossed into Russian territory.
In the last few days, open source maps showed Russia piercing the frontline and carving out a narrow salient in the small piece of Russian territory that Ukraine occupied last year, partly as a possible bargaining chip in any future peace talks.
“A number of settlements on the border, the names of which appear in the reports of Russian propagandists, no longer actually exist – they have been destroyed by the aggressor’s shelling,” Syrskyi said.
Ukraine’s general staff reported that its troops had so far repelled two Russian attacks in the region on Monday.
“Despite the involvement of a significant number of Russian troops in the offensive, reinforced by North Korean infantry, the enemy is suffering significant losses in manpower and equipment,” Syrskyi added.
Russia’s defence ministry said on Sunday that its forces had recaptured three more settlements in the Kursk region.
Syrskyi also said that Ukrainian troops were destroying Russian reconnaissance groups and infantry trying to pierce into the Sumy region in northeastern Ukraine across the border from Kursk.
(Reporting by Yuliia Dysa; Editing by Kevin Liffey, Gareth Jones and Susan Fenton)
