FILE PHOTO: A view shows a building, damaged during a recent fighting between Ukrainian and Russian forces in controlled by Ukrainian army the town of Sudzha, Kursk region, Russia August 16, 2024. REUTERS/Yan Dobronosov/File Photo
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian forces have taken back more than 800 square km (309 square miles) of territory from Ukraine in the Kursk region of western Russia, or about 64% of the total taken by Ukraine since an incursion began last year, a top Russian general said.
Colonel General Sergei Rudskoi, head of the General Staff's main operational directorate, told the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper that Russia was advancing in all directions and Ukraine had been pushed into a defensive stance since February 2024 amid a major Russian offensive that took back considerable territory.
Rudskoi said Russia now controlled 75% of Ukraine's Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions and more than 99% of the Luhansk region. He said the four regions are now legally part of Russia and will never be returned to Ukraine.
"Last year was a turning point in achieving our goals. The Kyiv regime will no longer be able to significantly change the situation on the battlefield," Rudskoi said. "The enemy has largely lost the ability to produce the necessary weapons, equipment and ammunition. Mobilisation is usually forced."
Rudskoi said the future of the conflict no longer depended on Ukraine but on whether or not the West would agree to craft a new European security architecture which took into account Russia's interests.
U.S. President Donald Trump has upended U.S. policy on the Ukraine war, denouncing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as a "dictator" on Wednesday and warning he had to move quickly to secure peace or risk losing his country, deepening a feud between the two leaders that has alarmed European officials.
Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 as part of what President Vladimir Putin calls a "special military operation", triggering the deadliest war in Europe since World War Two and pitting Russian forces against Ukraine's Western-backed army.
Russia also controls Crimea which it annexed in 2014.
Russia currently controls just under a fifth of Ukraine.
(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; editing by Christian Schmollinger and Michael Perry)
