Russian President Vladimir Putin has ruled out negotiations with Kiev in light of Ukraine’s counteroffensive on Russian soil, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday.
“The president said it very clearly that following attacks, or even incursion, on the Kursk region, any talks are impossible,” Lavrov said on Russian state television on the sidelines of Putin’s visit to Azerbaijan.
Lavrov also said that Putin would soon give an assessment of the situation. Reports of contacts between the warring parties, which had been established by intermediaries such as Qatar or Turkey, were nothing more than rumours, Lavrov added.
The Russian president’s current silence on the crisis in his own military is not new. When faced with previous defeats, Putin only spoke out after a long pause and sometimes after sitting out the crisis.
Zelensky says Kiev now controls large area in Russia
Ukraine, which has been fending off a full-scale Russian invasion for nearly two and a half years, launched a counteroffensive around a fortnight ago, advancing into the western Russian region of Kursk.
Ukraine had made further gains in its counteroffensive, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday.
“As of today, our forces control over 1,250 square kilometres of the enemy’s territory and 92 settlements,” Zelensky said during a speech before Ukrainian diplomats and officials.
Zelensky’s figures on the territorial gains exceed most previous estimates by military observers and are difficult to confirm. Most experts admit the inaccuracy of their estimates due to the limited amount of visual material. In particular, the Ukrainian armed forces publish very little in order to avoid jeopardizing their advance.
Zelensky noted that a key tactical objective – reducing the threat to Ukraine’s Sumy border region – had been successfully achieved.
He described the offensive as a great success and said critics would have deemed a counteroffensive on Russian soil as crossing “the strictest of all the red lines that Russia has.”
This is the first time that Kiev has shifted the war to the territory of its opponent. Russia continues to occupy large parts of eastern and southern Ukraine.
Prior to the Ukrainian counterattack, Putin had demanded that Kiev cede further territory as a prerequisite for peace negotiations.
Ukrainian Air Force issues provisional all-clear
While Ukrainian troops made progress on Russian territory, the situation on the front in the east of Ukraine remained difficult.
There were 154 battles on Ukrainian territory, reported the General Staff in Kiev in its evening situation report.
The General Staff said 71 Russian airstrikes on Ukraine had been recorded, alongside some 629 kamikaze drones.
However, the Ukrainian Air Force had issued a provisional all-clear regarding a feared Russian airstrike.
Six Tupolev Tu-95 strategic bombers, which had taken off from northern Russia, had landed again, the air force announced on its Telegram channel on Monday.
The official air-raid warning app of Ukraine also removed the alarm concerning the aircraft.
Ukrainians constantly inform themselves about imminent dangers through multiple channels.
A military-affiliated blog reported that the aircraft had simulated the launch of cruise missiles over the Volga region near Saratov. It claimed that no missiles had been detected in the air.
The Tu-95 bombers then reportedly landed at the Engels Air Base on the Volga and at Dyagilevo in the Ryazan region, though this information was not independently verifiable.
Russian fuel storage facility still ablaze
Meanwhile, a large fuel storage facility in southern Russia was still ablaze on Monday, the day after a Ukrainian drone attack, the regional authorities of Rostov-on-Don announced. They declared a state of emergency for the district of Proletarsk.
Eighteen firefighters have been injured, with four of them taken to hospital with burns, the state-run Russian news agency TASS reported.
It was stated that the high temperatures in the region, exceeding 30 degrees Celsius, have made the firefighting operation more difficult.
The fire at the fuel storage facility in Proletarsk, which houses more than 70 individual tanks, was triggered on Sunday morning by a Ukrainian drone attack.
In recent months, Ukraine has targeted numerous Russian refineries and other oil facilities with drones. This is intended to hinder the supply of fuel to enemy troops and reduce the revenues of Russia’s oil industry.
