Ukraine Finally Squeezed Out Of Kursk As Russian Army Retakes Key Monastery

Tass news agency is reporting that Moscow forces are poised to liberate the last village still held by Ukraine forces in the southwestern Kursk region. This final battle will bring 100% of Kursk oblast back under full Russian control.

“Our soldiers liberated the St. Nicholas Belogorsky Monastery in Gornal during fighting,” a source was quoted in the report as saying. The operation which focused on regaining the 17th century monastery and its environs took ”more than a week.”

“The resistance of the Ukrainian Armed Forces has been broken,” the source was quoted further as saying, and alleged that the Ukrainian troops were using the monastery as a “military facility.”

The remaining Ukrainian troops in Kursk appear to be squeezed and in the throes of their final effort to hold on to some Russian territory inside the border, as the liberated monastery is on the northeastern edge of Gornal and located less than 30 kilometers to the northeast of the city of Sumy inside Ukraine.

Russia’s Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov informed President Vladimir Putin on Saturday that 99.5% of the Kursk region has been regained by Russian forces.

At the height of the cross-border offensive which began last August, Ukraine’s military had seized just over 530 square miles, but regional reports now say that significant figure is down to less than just 20 square miles.

The operation to retake Kursk has clearly gained new impetus over the last several weeks, and likely Putin wants to achieve its full liberation in order to avoid negotiating an exchange of territory. What little leverage Zelensky had has now been effectively quashed. 

Konstantin Remchukov, the editor of the Nezavisimaya Gazeta newspaper, wrote Sunday that “As soon as the last 0.5% is liberated, then the troops can stop where this news finds them.” And so these Russian troops can also be diverted to the main battlefield in eastern Ukraine, where Moscow forces also have the forward momentum.

Meanwhile in fresh Wednesday statements, Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov made clear the Kremlin is no rush to push through a ceasefire deal. The conflict ”cannot be expected to be resolved overnight,” he said.

“We continue our contacts with the Americans through various channels. The issue of the [Ukrainian] settlement is extremely complex, of course, so it is hardly possible to set some hard deadlines and try to rush the resolution of the conflict into a shortened timeframe. This would be an exercise in futility,” he told broadcaster VGTRK.

Above: Map showing close proximity of the monastery to the Ukrainian border.

“But the work [on settling the Ukrainian crisis] is indeed ongoing,” Peskov stated. Zelensky has accused the Russians of not really being interested in peace, and has alleged it’s just using negotiations to distract and make advances on the battlefield while trying to improve its reputation internationally.