Zelenskyy said he would also reveal his country’s plans to presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.
The Ukrainian president said his forces’ recent incursion into Russia’s southeastern Kursk region was an integral element of the plan, the success of which he said would depend on Washington granting Kyiv the means to implement it.
Speaking at the Ukraine 2024 Independence forum in Kyiv on Tuesday, Zelenskyy said that in addition to the Kursk operation, the victory plan involved Ukraine’s participation in the global security architecture, diplomatic pressure on Russia to end the war, and an economic element, though he declined to divulge details, the Kyiv Independent reported.
At the same forum, the country’s top military commander, Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, said Ukraine now controls 1,294 sq km of Russian territory and 100 settlements. The BBC reported this with the caveat that it had been unable to verify the claims.
Syrskyi said Ukraine had no intention of occupying the territory long-term and that the purpose of the incursion, the first invasion of Russian territory since World War II, was to draw Russian forces away from their offensive operations in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region. He claimed the tactic had succeeded, resulting in
significant Russian redeployments.
NATO meeting
A sitting has been called for Wednesday in Brussels of the NATO-Ukraine Council. The sitting, convened at Kyiv’s request by the alliance’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, comes in the wake of one of Russia’s
fiercest aerial bombardments
of Ukraine since the start of the war on Monday and Tuesday. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the attacks were Moscow’s response to the Kursk operation and appeared to dismiss any hope of peace talks for the same reason.
A NATO spokeswoman said Ukraine’s defense minister, Rustem Umerov, would brief the meeting via videolink on the latest battlefield situation and “priority capability needs," Reuters reported.
She added that NATO member countries were “committed to further bolstering Ukraine’s defenses," the news service said.
One topic likely to be raised at the talks is that of Western restrictions on the use of long-range weaponry. Ukraine is permitted to use some munitions to strike targets within Russia but does not have consent to use American ATACMS or British Storm Shadow missiles for such purposes.
Zelenskyy has repeatedly called on Western allies to change their policies, arguing that his country’s defensive capabilities are being hampered.
“They don't want to talk about it, and I keep bringing it up," Zelensky joked at the forum. “The Olympics are over, but ping pong is still there."
In a related development, Zelenskyy used Tuesday’s Kyiv event to reveal that Ukraine has recently conducted the first successful tests of a domestically produced ballistic missile without giving details. Having its own long-range missiles would free Ukraine’s hand in terms of its use as well as reducing its dependency on Western military aid.
