"We believe that the Kursk operation can also affect the (Pokrovsk) direction, where the pressure may be reduced due to a decrease in the number of Russian troops," President Volodymyr Zelensky said.

Vladimir Putin's sluggish response to the first foreign occupation of Russian territory since World War II suggests he is more focused on the opportunities Volodymyr Zelensky's incursion into Kursk may present elsewhere on the front line.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday praised the speed with which his troops are occupying new territory in neighbouring Ukraine. During an appearance in front of schoolchildren, he said that Ukraine's attempt to halt the advance of Russian troops in the Donbass with its counterattack in the Kursk region had been in vain.

Media pundit Vitaly Tretyakov recently said on Russian TV that Zelensky's attack on the Kursk region "is yielding results."

Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed on Monday that his army was "rapidly advancing in east Ukraine," using this as evidence that Kyiv's cross-border incursion into the Kursk region was failing. This announcement followed Moscow's overnight barrage of missiles and drones at Ukraine,