Ukraine's Kursk offensive has been effective and it's working to block Russian forces from taking more territory in eastern Ukraine, the country's top military commander told CNN Thursday.
Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi said the strategy "reduced the threat of an enemy offensive. We prevented them from acting. We moved the fighting to the enemy's territory so that [the enemy] could feel what we feel every day."
Ukrainian forces stormed into Russia's Kursk region last month, in a surprise move that caught Moscow off guard and marked the first time foreign troops had invaded the country since World War II.
Syrskyi told CNN that his forces have been able to stall Russian advances in and around the strategic city of Pokrovsk. He said, "Over the last six days the enemy hasn't advanced a single meter in the Pokrovsk direction. In other words, our strategy is working."
"We've taken away their ability to maneuver and to deploy their reinforcement forces from other directions... and this weakening has definitely been felt in other areas. We note the amount of artillery shelling as well as the intensity of the offensive have decreased," he said.
But nearly a month after the Aug. 6 invasion, Ukraine has yet to achieve one of its main goals: diverting a sufficient number of Russian troops from the front lines to Kursk. While Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the offensive succeeded in diverting some 60,000 Russian troops from Ukraine, the impact on the battlefields hasn't been noticeable.
Syrski was appointed commander in chief in February after Zelenskyy fired his predecessor, Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi. At the time, tensions were spiking as the Ukrainian military dealt with personnel and ammunition shortages and U.S. aid stalled in Congress.
Kate McManus ✉
Kate McManus is a New Jersey-based Newsmax writer who's spent more than two decades as a journalist.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.