Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said that the incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, which took Moscow and Kyiv’s allies by surprise, would be part of a “victory plan” to be presented to President Joe Biden and U.S. presidential candidates.
At the Ukraine 2024 Independence forum in Kyiv, Zelensky said the proposal would also be presented to Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, who are vying for the White House in November’s election.
Without providing details of how, Trump has repeatedly claimed that he could end the invasion started by Vladimir Putin within a day.
On Tuesday, Trump’s campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung told Newsweek that the Republican candidate was “the only one who can put an end to the war, and it would have never happened if he was still in the White House.”
President Joe Biden and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky on the sidelines of the NATO Summit at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C., on July 11, 2024. The latter said the Kursk incursion would be part of a “victory plan” to be presented to the White House leader and U.S. presidential candidates.
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Zelensky said that the success of the plan would depend on “what is in this plan or not, [and] whether we will be free to use this plan, or not.”
“It may sound too ambitious for some,” the Ukrainian president said, “but it is an important plan for us.” Zelensky provided few details on Tuesday but said the Kursk incursion in which surprise gains were made was the first part of the four-stage plan. The second stage referred to Ukraine’s “strategic place in the security infrastructure of the world.”
The third part entailed a “powerful package of forcing Russia to end the war in a diplomatic way,” while the fourth area was in the economic sphere. Newsweek has emailed the White House for comment.
There have been questions about Ukraine’s objectives in Kursk where its troops have reportedly captured roughly 390 square miles, but at the same time, Russia has made advances toward the Donetsk city of Pokrovsk, whose capture would be a big coup for Vladimir Putin.
In a post on X, the journalist Leonid Ragozin asked, in the event of a “victory plan” being presented to Biden, “is the outgoing U.S. president capable of backing up a toolbox of measures that would really help to defeat Russia (via a major escalation presumably)?”
“The answer to both is probably no,” Ragozin posted, adding such a plan “is likely the brand name for something as hollow and unrealistic as ‘peace formula’.”
The U.S.-based think tank Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said on Tuesday Russia had conducted “significant tactical advances” in the Pokrovsk direction amid reports that Ukrainian forces had withdrawn from select areas southeast of the crucial logistics hub.
