Zelenskyy: 60 thousand Russian troops are in Kursk direction, some of them were redeployed from Kharkiv region
As of now, there are 60,000 Russian troops in the Kursk direction. In particular, the invaders redeployed some of their troops from near Kharkiv region.
This was stated by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in an interview with the Italian TV channel RaiNews24, Censor.NET reports.
The President said that the Armed Forces' operation in the Kursk region of Russia is not an act of "appropriation" of Russian territories.
"This (Kursk operation - ed.) was a tactical success for Ukraine, but not a success for occupation. We don't need their territory (Kursk region - ed.), we don't need their land, we don't need their people. We just want to live peacefully at home without war. This is the only thing we need. And that's why these appropriate steps were taken," the head of state explained.
Zelenskyy noted that Russian dictator Putin sought to occupy northern Ukraine, so the Defense Forces took preventive steps.
"The city of Sumy is a big city, the city of Kharkiv is a big city. Today there are more than a million people in Kharkiv. If he (Putin - ed.) occupies them, hundreds of thousands of people will die. Therefore, we had to take the first steps, we saw a large number of their troops amassed to occupy Sumy, we took the first step before they did. And it helped us a lot," the President said.
Now, according to Zelenskyy, Russia has amassed 60,000 troops in the Kursk direction.
"This also helped us in the Kharkiv region, they redeployed a lot of troops from Kharkiv to Kursk, and we were able to stop them in the Kharkiv region," the head of state added.
In the interview, President Zelenskyy also rejected the idea of territorial concessions to Russia, as he said it would give the aggressor a pause before a new attack.
