The Kremlin said Monday it “will not talk” to Ukraine given its incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, which took Moscow by surprise and has now stretched into its second week.
Kyiv sent troops over the border on August 6, and has since held onto a part of the Kursk region, going on the attack in an offensive that has rattled Moscow.
“At the current stage, given this escapade, we will not talk,” Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told the Russian Shot Telegram channel, adding that “at the moment it would be completely inappropriate to enter into a negotiating process”.
Asked when possible talks could begin between the two sides, he said: “I don’t know, everything depends on the situation on the battlefield, including in the Kursk region.”
Ukraine’s operation, planned in utter secrecy, is an unprecedented incursion into Russian soil and the biggest attack since Moscow launched the full-scale conflict in February 2022.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday said his troops were meeting their objectives during their offensive in Russia’s Kursk region, launched almost two weeks ago.
He earlier said that the operation was aimed at putting “more pressure” on Russia in order to bring peace “closer”.
“We are achieving our goals. This morning we have another replenishment of the (prisoner of war) exchange fund for our country,” Zelensky said, a day after saying Ukraine was attempting to create a “buffer zone” in Russia.
Russia Blames US For Nord Stream Blasts
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday it was “clear” that the United States had ordered the 2022 attacks on the Nord Stream gas pipelines.
“It is clear that to carry out such a terrorist attack, there was a command from the very top, as they say, the very top for the West is, of course, Washington,” Lavrov told the Izvestia news outlet in a video interview.
Pokrovsk Evacuation Orders
Ukrainian local authorities on Monday issued a mandatory evacuation order for families with children from the eastern city of Pokrovsk, where 53,000 people still live.
They say Russian forces are advancing so quickly that it is compulsory for families to leave the city and other nearby towns. Russian troops have been pushing toward Pokrovsk for months.
State Of Emergency In Russian City Declared
Authorities in the southern Russian city of Proletarsk introduced a state of emergency Monday as firefighters battle for more than 24 hours to extinguish a blaze at an oil facility hit by a Ukrainian drone.
Russia said Kyiv struck the fuel storage warehouse — located in the city of 20,000 people in the southern Rostov region — on Sunday morning and that the blaze was raging for a second day.
Russian state media quoted a statement of the local city administration that said there was no threat of the fire spreading to residential areas and called on people “not to give in to panic.”
Videos on social media showed a huge cloud of smoke billowing into the air at night.
Proletarsk lies some 200 kilometres (120 miles) from the Ukrainian border.
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