Ukraine has stolen the initiative from Russia with its cross-border offensive into the Kursk region
Ukraine has stolen the battlefield initiative from Russia with its cross-border offensive into the Kursk region. But its Western backers have, for the most part, remained curiously silent about the surprise move.
A week on, as Russian forces scrambled to respond to the sneak attack after days of fierce fighting, Ukraine’s top military commander said that his troops were in control of 1,000 square kilometers (386 square miles) of territory.
The move also appeared to surprise many of Ukraine’s supporters at NATO and the European Union. It’s unclear how extensively they were briefed ahead of the offensive, if at all, even though U.S. President Joe Biden insists that he’s been kept abreast of developments since.
“I’ve spoken with my staff on a regular basis probably every four or five hours for the last six or eight days,” Biden told reporters on Tuesday. The Ukrainian offensive, he said, is “creating a real dilemma for (Russian President Vladimir) Putin.”
Pressed for more, Biden said only: “That’s all I’m going to say about it while it’s active.”
In Brussels, European Commission spokeswoman Nabila Massrali also declined to go into detail, saying that “the European Union is not involved, and is not commenting on, the operational developments on the front line.”
“We are fully standing behind Ukraine’s legitimate exercise of its inherent right for self-defense and efforts to restore its territorial integrity and sovereignty, and to push back and fight the illegal aggression by Russia,” she told reporters.
