Authorities in Kyiv have refused to discuss any peace agreement with the Kremlin unless it involves the complete withdrawal of Russian troops from all occupied areas, including the Crimean peninsula.
ADVERTISEMENTAs a result of the ongoing incursion of Ukrainian forces into Russian territory, Moscow has decided to put any peace talks over its war against the neighbouring country on hold, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday.
In a press conference dedicated to the so-called "crimes of the Kyiv regime," ambassador-at-large of the Russian Foreign Ministry Rodion Miroshnik said that the issue of peace talks between Russia and Ukraine had been "put for a long pause" after Kyiv's attacks on the Kursk region, labelling them as "terrorist actions".
"Conducting negotiations with an absolutely inadequate adversary today is simply unnatural," Rodion Miroshnik explained.
Following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, authorities in Kyiv have refused to discuss any peace agreement with Moscow unless it involves the complete withdrawal of Russian troops from all occupied areas, including the Crimean peninsula, unilaterally annexed by the Kremlin in 2014.
Belgorod declares emergency
Meanwhile, a second Russian border region of Belgorod declared an emergency as Ukrainian forces press their incursion into Moscow's territory, now in its second week.
Regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov described the situation there as "extremely difficult and tense," claiming Ukrainian forces destroyed homes and caused civilian casualties, unnerving local people.
About 5,000 children have been moved to camps in safe areas, Gladkov said on his Telegram channel. He said the previous day that around 11,000 people had fled their homes, with about 1,000 staying in temporary accommodation centres.
None of the claims could be independently confirmed.
The surprise Ukrainian charge onto Russian soil that began on 6 August has rattled the Kremlin.
The daring Kursk operation is the largest attack on Russia since World War II and could involve as many as 10,000 Ukrainian troops backed by armour and artillery, military analysts say. An emergency was declared in Kursk last Saturday.
Zelenskyy: Kursk operation meant to lift Ukraine's spirits
A Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Tuesday that Kyiv has no intention of occupying the Russian territory it says it is holding. The goal is to stop Russia from firing missiles into Ukraine from Kursk, he said.
It was not clear how or when — or whether — Ukraine would attempt to extricate itself from the ground it has taken. The Ukrainian military claims it controls 74 settlements, believed to be villages or hamlets, in the Kursk region. Russian officials say more than 100,000 people have been evacuated, mostly from Kursk.
The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank, said the incursion is unlikely to shift the dynamics of the war.
"Russian authorities will likely remain extremely averse to pulling Russian military units engaged in combat from (Donetsk) and will likely continue deploying limited numbers of irregular forces to Kursk … due to concerns about further slowing the tempo of Russian operations in these higher priority directions," it said late Tuesday.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy indicated that the Kursk operation is also intended to lift the country's spirits after 900 days of war and rally people by making an emphatic statement about Ukraine's military capabilities.
ADVERTISEMENT"Now all of us in Ukraine should act as unitedly and efficiently as we did in the first weeks and months of this war, when Ukraine took the initiative and began to turn the situation to the benefit of our state," Zelenskyy said in his nightly address Tuesday.
"Now we have done the exact same thing — we have proven once again that we, Ukrainians, are capable of achieving our goals in any situation — capable of defending our interests and our independence," he said.