The Kremlin teacher is proud of the resumption of his Koursk region, under the Ukrainian fires since August 2024. He was the head of Russian army personnel, Valeré Guyrasimov, who announced this Saturday, April 26, the “liberation” of the last town in the territory of the Koursk region, the village of Gornal “, during a video meeting.
“The adventure of the kyiv regime has failed completely,” said Vladimir Putin immediately.
However, Ukraine challenges Russian victory in Koursk. President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday that the Ukrainian army continued its operations in this Russian border region. Ukrainian military officers had also rejected the “false” statements of Russian army staff, denouncing Moscow’s “propaganda”.
A “symbolic” Ukrainian presence
In fact, according to experts interviewed by BFMTV.com, Ukrainian troops are still frugally present in the Koursk region, just a few kilometers beyond the border and in some small villages.
“Physically, they are still present and there are incursions on both sides of the border, but it is only symbolic,” said Ulrich Bounat, geopolitical analyst and associated researcher at The Think Theck Craiv, contacted by BFMTV.com.
For him, the “strategic value” of the Ukrainian presence in this Russian region has been reduced to the skin when the Russians took over the city of Sudja on March 13. This town of 5,000 inhabitants was the main taking of Ukrainians in the region.
According to a military blog close to the Ukrainian army’s Deepstate state cited by kyiv Independent, Ukraine continues to occupy limited positions in the town of Gornal and near Oleshyya.
“Today it seems that kyiv occupies 30 km2 of surface in Koursk, the equivalent of the city of Vannes (Morbihan). This is nothing,” says General Jérôme Pellistrandi, our defense consultant.
In the apogee of his surprise incursion in the Koursk region in August 2024, for the first time the war in the Russian territory since World War II, Ukraine had managed to control up to 1,400 km2. But the Russian army hastened to start a counteroffensive to face this affront.
In February, almost two thirds of the territories conquered by Ukraine in Russia were taken. On February 13, Kyiv declared control 500 km2 of this region, two thirds less than the 1,400 km2 claimed at the beginning of the attack. In recent weeks, Ukrainian troops have continued to withdraw in this area of the front, the Russian army gradually moving forward.
Putin greets the “heroism” of the norcorean soldiers deployed
To recover these lands, the Russians appealed to the help of North Korean soldiers. Up to 11,000 North Korean soldiers were deployed in the Koursk region last October according to Seoul, kyiv and Washington.
Vladimir Putin praised on Monday, April 28 on Monday, April 28 of the “heroism” of these soldiers who, according to him, “took an active part” in the fighting in the Koursk region and “defended the homeland as theirs.”
Moscow recognized his participation in the conflict for the first time. Like North Korea breaking with his silence until then about this question. Of the 12,000 North Korean soldiers committed, more than 3,000 were killed or injured, according to Volodymyr Zelensky.
General Jérôme Pellistrandi says he is “surprised” by this admission of Moscow. “By confirming the presence of North Korean soldiers, Putin admits a certain military weakness,” he said. “Russia has taken a long time to reconquer the territory and, in addition, with the support of North Korea,” abounds in the National Defense Review editor.
While Donald Trump tries the best he can to put kyiv and Moscow at the negotiating table, Jérôme Pellistrandi fears that the recognition of the presence of North Korean soldiers “increases the anger and impatience” of the US president.
“This can only age a red fabric in front of the Trump bull,” he said that “the Korean war is still a trauma for the United States.”
A difficult toll to draw
Koursk’s resumption constantly falls to the Kremlin teacher: it can glorify it during the commemorations of the 80th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany, despite the general failure of his “Flash operation in Ukraine.” The Russian president has also unilaterally decided a three -day truce on this occasion, from May 8 to 10.
“Koursk’s resumption gives Putin a little more space for maneuver, the elbows a little more frank to unilaterally decide a truce,” said the geopolitical analyst, Ulrich Bounat.
But “it is not because Koursk’s liberation was a sine condition qua qua in the eyes of Moscow to discuss that the Russians will rush to the negotiating table,” he abounds.
With the Russian recovery of the Oblast of Koursk, Ukraine loses a letter to play during possible future negotiations. I hoped to monetize this small occupied part of the region. In addition, some analysts believe that Russian advances in eastern Ukraine have been facilitated by the embezzlement of kyiv’s forces to Koursk. It is likely that the morals of the Ukrainian society and its army also receive a blow.
But “it is still difficult to take stock of this incursion, we do not know military losses,” said researcher Ulrich Bounat.
However, he pointed out that the clashes in Koursk were a “catalyst.” “This has allowed to show in the eyes of the world that the Russian nuclear threat has no water, the internationalization of the conflict with North Korea has demonstrated its weakness, and finally pushed the Westerners to deliver more sophisticated weapons to Ukraine and allow the use of their missiles in the Russian territory,” he lists.
From a “tactical” point of view, this made it possible to “destabilize the Russians at a given time,” concludes the researcher.
Source: BFM TV
