The Russian Federation and its President Vladimir Putin are deliberately "inflating“ the statistics of the losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) in the Kursk region to justify the inability of the Mokva army to retake the region.
This is stated in a new report by the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW), the publication "Ukrainska Pravda” reports.
Analysts note that Putin has been exaggerating Russia's progress in Kursk Oblast, possibly trying to reassure local audiences of the Russian military's ability to "suppress” the invasion of Ukraine in the border region.
Putin's statement to the Russian media about the "blocked” 2,000 Ukrainian military personnel in the region. However, as noted in the ISW report, the Ministry of Defense has not publicly announced the alleged successful "infiltration of Russian troops into some Ukrainian positions in the Kursk region”.
The Kremlin leader also failed to acknowledge that the Ukrainian front line in the Kursk region extends from the Ukrainian-Russian international border and that Ukrainian troops can freely cross sections of the border under their control.
The report states that according to the estimates of the Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, General Alexander Sirsky, who denied Putin's words about the encirclement of the Ukrainian military, the losses of Russian troops since August 8 in the Kursk region amounted to 17,819 people.
Although ISW cannot independently verify Ukrainian estimates of Russian casualties, reports indicate that the ASU continues to operate in Kursk Oblast.
"Putin's exaggerated statistics are likely part of his attempt to explain Russia's failure to decisively repulse the Ukrainian invasion of Kursk Oblast after nearly three months in the context of the likely impending deployment of North Korean troops to the region,” ISW sums up.< /p>