Ukraine’s Commander-in-Chief Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi has revealed the strategic objectives behind the country’s surprise cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk Oblast in an interview with CNN aired on 5 September. The top general said he believes the operation has been a success.

According to Syrskyi, the primary goals of the Kursk operation were

• preventing Russia from using the region as a launchpad for a new offensive
• diverting Moscow’s forces from other areas
• creating a security zone to prevent cross-border shelling of civilian objects
• taking prisoners of war
• boosting the morale of Ukrainian troops and the nation overall.

“We prevented them from acting. We moved the fighting to the enemy’s territory so that [the enemy] could feel what we feel every day,” Syrskyi told CNN.

Zelenskyy: Kursk incursion diverts 60,000 Russian soldiers from other parts of front lines

Russian advancement near Pokrovsk stalled, Syrskyi says

Syrskyi also addressed the current situation near Pokrovsk, a strategic city in Donetsk Oblast. The area has been the epicenter of fighting in eastern Ukraine for months and saw accelerated Russian advances in August.

He said Ukraine does everything not to lose Pokrovsk and has managed to stall Russian advances in the area, stating,

“Over the last six days the enemy hasn’t advanced a single meter in the Pokrovsk direction. In other words, our strategy [of diverting Russian troops from Ukraine] is working,” he said

Surskyi added that the Russians concentrated their most trained units in the area, but those now lack maneuverability:

“We’ve taken away their ability to maneuver and to deploy their reinforcement forces from other directions,” he stated, also adding that the amount of artillery shelling and Russian offensive intensity have decreased.

However, the Deep State Map OSINT project, maintaining daily updates to an interactive military map based on open source data, shows that Russian advancements did not fully halt in the recent days, and they advanced near Ukrainsk, and made incremental gains near Selydove and elsewhere.

Nevertheless, the gains are not as rapid as before late August, according to the Deep State data.

Recruitment

Syrskyi stressed the priority of recruiting more soldiers, but admitted that troops are being deployed with less training than ideal.

Due to the urgency at the front, conscripts receive one month of basic training and up to a month of specialized training before being sent to fight.

Related:

• Syrskyi: Ukraine advances 2 km in Kursk Oblast as Pokrovsk remains most challenging sector
• Frontline report: Russians make significant advances toward Pokrovsk amid heavy fighting
• Zelenskyy: Kursk incursion diverts 60,000 Russian soldiers from other parts of front lines
• UK intel: Russian forces advance toward Donetsk’s Pokrovsk, approach within ten kilometers
• Frontline report: friendly fire incident exposes disarray in Russian ranks in Kursk Oblast
• Frontline report: Ukrainians open new axes of advance in Russia’s Kursk Oblast