In an interview with NBC News, the President said that Ukraine’s operation in the Kursk region was a preemptive strike due to a lack of range to prevent Russia from creating so-called “buffer zones”, Suspilne reports.
Preparations for the Kursk operation were carried out in secret not because of distrust of the allies, but to avoid information leakage even through communication. Zelenskyy said that there was an understanding from the intelligence community that Russia was planning to create a buffer zone. Even openly, Putin and his entourage stated that they wanted to build a buffer zone along the Ukrainian border deep into the Ukrainian state, the president recalled.
And we realized that they would not stop. They made a breakthrough in Kharkiv region. Thank God, we were able to stop them there and did not allow them to occupy Kharkiv. And then we had signals that they could do it in the north. Sumy and Chernihiv regions. And it would have been a very serious challenge for us. I know that they did not abandon these plans. And then we realized that we needed to conduct an operation so that the buffer zone would not be created by them, but by us, – Zelenskyy said.
So that later the Ukrainian army would not repel Russian attacks, as it was in Kharkiv, losing territory and people, but rather do something unexpected, the president explained. And that, he said, is how this operation came about.
According to Zelenskyy, there were several options for a preemptive strike in the Kursk region.
If the operation goes positively, this is the point where we have to go, and if it is more complicated, this is the minimum we have to do. It went more successfully and therefore we used plan A, – the president said.
According to Zelenskyy, there were several options for a preemptive strike in the Kursk region.
Zelenskyy also explained why Ukraine decided not to inform its allies, including US President Joe Biden. According to him, it was not a matter of distrust. A lot of institutions within the state were also not informed.
You see, this is a war, and information leakage is constant. And it may not be from a person, it may be through the means of communication, sometimes there is a leakage of information in closed headquarters. Because there are a lot of people, a lot of information, and this means that there is a possibility of information leakage, – the president said.
He said that Ukraine had previously had problems with the operation in the south more than a year ago. Back then, everyone knew about it: inside the country, partners, and the Russians.
The Russians knew the details of this operation. When our troops went to attack in the south, they were waiting. Both the troops and the fortifications were prepared for our operation. Parts of the fields of the roads along which this operation was going on were mined, all of this was there. And they were mined in advance. That is, everyone knew. You cannot fight when everyone knows, – Zelenskyy said.
He added that not only partners did not know about the Kursk operation.
Many services did not know. And Ukrainian intelligence did not know about it. I reduced the circle of people who knew about this operation as much as possible. That’s why it was very unexpected. I believe that this is one of the reasons why the operation was successful, – the president emphasized.
Asked what Ukraine plans to do with the territory of Kursk region, whether it will be kept for exchange or turned into a region of Ukraine, Zelenskyy said that Ukraine does not need Russian territory.
Our operation is aimed at restoring our territorial integrity. We do not need their people, their civilians, their citizens. We take prisoners of war only to exchange them for ours… And likewise… we do not need their land. We do not want to bring our Ukrainian life there, – the president said.
Zelenskyy added that the Kursk operation strengthens Ukraine, but “this does not mean that we will exchange one territory for another.” According to him, “Kursk is a step of another operation, a larger one, which is military-political or military-diplomatic”.
