Ukraine says it has now lost two-thirds of the territory it occupied in the Russian region of Kursk, giving it a “security zone” of 500 square kilometers on Russian territory, Ukrainian Chief of General Staff Oleksandr Syrskyj said on Facebook.
Ukraine had previously said it controlled some 1,400 square kilometers in Kursk after the offensive it launched in August, , as reported by Die Welt.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said that the occupied territory in Kursk serves as a bargaining chip in future negotiations with Russia. Now, that chip has been largely whittled away. Nevertheless, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has made it clear they have no interest in such an exchange, saying, “That is impossible.”
As for Russia, it previously took over the Crimean peninsula in 2014, while it conquered parts of the Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhia regions in 2022.
The issue of territorial exchange will be a major focus point as U.S. President Donald Trump pushes forward with peace negotiations. Having now spoken to Putin on the phone, he says he knows that Putin is open to negotiations. Details on a peace deal have not been laid out, but it has been widely discussed that Ukraine will not be allowed to enter NATO and the U.S. is set on major rare earth mineral and other resource concessions from Ukraine as payback for the billions sent for its defense against Russia.
