Ukraine has appointed a military commander to administer the areas of Kursk it has captured. Russiain a great humiliation for Vladimir Putin.
Kiev continues to push into Russian territory as the beleaguered Kremlin struggles to contain a surprise Ukrainian attack.
General Oleksandr Syrskyi, the head of Ukraine's army, claimed that his troops had now advanced 35 km (almost 22 miles) Russia and controlled 1,150 square kilometers of territory.
He added that his troops were still advancing and had covered about 1.5 km (0.93 miles) in the past 24 hours.
Syrski also announced that the army has established a military command office in the occupied territories, which will be headed by Major General Eduard Moskalev.
“To maintain law and order and, above all, to provide for the needs of the population in the controlled areas, a military command office was created and Major General Moskalev was appointed as its general director,” he said.
In 2012, Major General Moskalev commanded the 300th Tank Training Regiment of the 169th Training Center of the Ukrainian Land Forces.
Later, between March 15 and June 20, 2022, he served as Commander of Joint Forces.
Since June 2022, Moskalev was commander of an operational and tactical force group on the Eastern Front. In 2023, he took over the Odessa operational-strategic group.
Russia has since evacuated nearly 200,000 people Ukraine launched its cross-border attack on August 6.
However, there are still many residents in the region, with Ukraine with the promise to provide them with the necessary humanitarian aid.
UkraineKiev Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said in a message to Telegram that Kiev is working with the military on a possible route for civilians to leave Kursk and go to Sumy. Ukraine.
Citizens could also move to other regions RussiaHowever, no official request has been received from the Kremlin to provide a safe corridor for those wishing to remain in the country. Russia.
Mikhail Podolyak, an adviser to President Zelensky, said Ukraine had no interest in occupying the captured territories and claimed the invasion was an attempt to create a security zone to prevent further Russian attacks on Ukrainian towns and villages.
“In the border areas of Russia“In the Kursk region, Ukrainians are engaged exclusively in security-related tasks,” he said in a social media post X.
“Ukraine is not interested in occupying these territories. But it is interested in actually destroying many Russian military facilities, pushing the remnants of Russian forces beyond the lines that allow artillery and ballistic missile strikes on Ukrainian territory, forming a security belt around Ukraine's borders and destroying military logistics and infrastructure (including storage bases, training centers and places where equipment is concentrated).
“Ukraine And Russia wage different wars, which have clear legal definitions. While Russia deliberately attacked Ukraine to kill civilians and occupy territory, which is an unqualified war crime, Ukraine wages an exclusively defensive war, including on the territory of the aggressor, to ensure the protection of its own population, which is its unconditional right.”