Russian President Vladimir Putin will mount a counteroffensive to try to retake territory in the Kursk region captured by Ukrainian troops, but Russian forces will face “a tough fight,” CIA Deputy Director David Cohen said Wednesday (28).
Cohen told a national security industry conference that the significance of the Ukrainian incursion, which overran about 300 square miles (777 square kilometers) of the Russian province, remained to be seen.
Ukrainian forces crossed Russia’s western border into the Kursk region on August 6 in a surprise offensive that remains ongoing.
While Kiev has said it has no intention of annexing the area it has captured, Ukrainian troops are building defensive lines and appear to intend to hold “part of this territory for some period of time,” Cohen said at the National Intelligence and Security Summit.
“We can be confident that Putin will mount a counteroffensive to try to reclaim that territory,” Cohen said. “I think our expectation is that it will be a tough fight for the Russians.”
Putin, he said, “will not only have to face the fact that there is now a front line inside Russian territory that he will have to deal with, but he will also have to deal with the repercussions on his own society, which has lost a piece of its territory.”
Ukraine’s success at Kursk “has the potential to change the dynamics” of the conflict “in the future,” he continued, without elaborating.
Ukraine has claimed the capture of 100 settlements in its incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, as Russian forces continue to advance in the eastern Donetsk region.
Cohen said Russia has made these gains “at an extraordinary cost” in troops and equipment and “may or may not” capture Ukraine’s key logistics hub of Pokrovsk.
“But ultimately, none of this is a game-changer in a strategic sense” for the Russians, he continued.
On Tuesday (27), Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the war with Russia would eventually end in dialogue, but that Kiev had to be in a strong position and would present a plan to US President Joe Biden and his two potential successors.
Putin said any deal must begin with Ukraine accepting “realities on the ground,” which would leave Russia in possession of substantial chunks of four Ukrainian regions as well as Crimea.
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This content was originally published in Russia will face “tough fight” to retake Kursk, says CIA deputy director on CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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