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Ukraine’s surprise attack inside Russia is the only way to force Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table as part of a “psychological” tactic to win the war, president Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief adviser has told The Independent.
Mykhailo Podolyak, the top aide to the Ukrainian president, said the incursion had shown Russians the harsh realities of Vladimir Putin’s war.
“We need to use absolutely clear tools to coerce Russia [into negotiation]. One of them is a military instrument of coercion.
“That is, we need to inflict significant tactical defeats on Russia, in addition to economic and diplomatic tools. In the Kursk region, we are seeing the optimisation of this military tool of coercion to force Russia into the negotiation process.”
Revealed: Ukraine’s plan to force Putin to retreat in shame
Exclusive: Ukraine’s top adviser to president Volodymyr Zelensky tells Tom Watling that Western partners knew about their incursion into the Russian Kursk region and details why Moscow must be bullied into a peace negotiation.
Russia ‘rapidly approaching’ a key military hub in eastern Ukraine
Russia is “rapidly approaching” a key military hub in eastern Ukraine, a local official has been reported as saying.
Serhii Dobriak, head of the Pokrovsk city military administration, urged the residents there to evacuate on Thursday. He said in a Telegram post: “The enemy is rapidly approaching the outskirts of Pokrovsk”.
“They are a bit more than 10 kilometres from the outskirts of Pokrovsk”, he said. He added that the situation was “only getting worse”.
Pokrovsk was home to around 60,000 people before the war and serves as a key hub for the Ukrainian military.
A Ukrainian army officer Serhii Tsehotskyi told a national broadcaster on Friday that Ukraine’s incursion into Russia had not lead to a decrease in attacks in the Donetsk region.
He said: “Taking into consideration the events in the Kursk region, they [the Russian troops] are trying to do everything in order to be successful at least somewhere”.
The independent uk