Putin facing ‘domestic discontent’ as Ukrainian forces seize more territory inside Russia
While the momentum on the battlefield over the past year is largely reported to have been with Russian forces, Ukraine has continued to enjoy a series of tactical successes.
Those have included cross-border raids inside Russia, with yesterday marking six months since Kyiv launched a shock offensive in the Kursk region.
The Institute for the Study of War think tank said Ukrainian forces launched a new series of battalion-sized mechanised assaults in Kursk yesterday and advanced up to 5km (3 miles) behind Russian lines southeast of Sudzha.
It said new geolocated footage indicated that Ukrainian forces recently advanced southwest of Makhnovka and north and east of Cherkasskaya Konopelka, and seized the village Kolmakov.
“Putin has yet to prioritise expelling Ukrainian forces from Kursk Oblast over continuing his gradual advances in Donetsk Oblast and continues to drag out the liberation of Kursk’s border areas, despite domestic discontent,” the ISW analysts said.
The Russian president told the regional governor of Kursk, Alexander Khinshtein, this week that the situation in the region was “very difficult”.
“It is exactly two months today since we met here last time, and I instructed you to organise work in the Kursk Region,” he said.
“The situation there is very difficult.
“And the most important thing that I asked you to pay attention to was reaching out to people and identifying their concerns and problems. Indeed, there are many problems there.”