Russia will launch a counteroffensive to try to retake territory in the Kursk region currently under the control of Ukrainian forces, but Russian troops will face a “difficult fight,” says Deputy CIA Director David Cohen, according to Reuters.
On 6 August, Ukraine began its incursion of up to 1,000 soldiers into Russia’s Kursk region, which caught the Russian military off guard. It is the first instance of a foreign army penetrating Russian territory since World War II.
As of 27 August, Ukraine has regained control of 1,294 square kilometers and 100 settlements in the Kursk region, with Ukrainian forces having captured 594 Russian occupiers.
“We can be certain that Putin will mount a counteroffensive to try to reclaim that territory. I think our expectation is that that will be a difficult fight for the Russians,” said Cohen.
He added that Ukrainian forces are building defensive lines and seem determined to hold the part of the Russian territory for “some time.”
According to him, Putin “is not only going to have to face the fact that there is a front line now within Russian territory that he’s going to have to deal with, he has to deal with reverberations back in his own society that they have lost a piece of Russian territory.”
Cohen noted that Ukraine’s success in Kursk has the potential to shift the dynamics of the conflict slightly.
Ukraine holds 100 settlements in the Kursk region, while Russian forces continue to advance in Donetsk. Cohen said that Russia has achieved these gains at “an extraordinary cost” in troops and equipment and “may or may not capture” Pokrovsk.
“But at the end of the day, none of it is a game changer in a strategic sense” for the Russians, Cohen added.
Earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine’s forces continue to extend their control over specific areas within Russian territory and replenish their exchange stock with Russian captives.
Zelenskyy: Ukrainian troops extend control in Russia’s Kursk Oblast
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