President Putin has continued to downplay Ukraine’s major Kursk invasion, which has resulted in Russian territory occupied by Kiev forces, and has instead maintained that capturing and holding all the Donbass in eastern Ukraine remains the goal.

“We have to deal with these thugs who made it into Russia,” he said at an event while visiting Russia’s east on Thursday. He’s yet to launch a broader general mobilization despite the assault on Kursk and the border region. 

He presented the Kursk operation as essentially a trap which he will not fall into. “The aim of the enemy [in Kursk] was to force us to worry, hustle, divert troops and to stop our offensive in key areas, especially in the Donbas, the liberation of which is our main primary objective,” Putin described at a forum in Vladivostok.

Ukrainian artillery targeting Russian positions near Pokrovsk in Donetsk region. Source: Ukrainian military via Reuters

Putin further painted a picture of the Kursk operation already having backfired on the Zelensky government. He said Ukraine’s leadership sent “quite well-prepared units” into Kursk – but this only served to allow for Russia to make a quicker advance in Donetsk. 

“The enemy weakened itself in key areas, our army has accelerated its offensive operations,” he asserted. He still sought to emphasize that Russian forces have begun to push the Ukrainian invaders back from Russian territory, however. But Putin said, “Our armed forces have stabilized the situation and started gradually squeezing [the enemy] out from our territory.”

Yet the Kursk fight has been on since Aug. 6 – and this alone has been a big symbolic blow for Kremlin war planners. It is the biggest incursion into Russia since WW2. “It is the holy duty of the Russian army to do everything to throw out the enemy from this territory and to protect our citizens,” Putin additionally declared.

President Zelensky in an interview with NBC this week claimed that Moscow had been forced to divert 60,000 soldiers from Ukraine to Kursk, but this has not been verified. 

Currently there is broad consensus among analysts that Ukraine’s eastern city of Pokrovsk could fall at any moment. Russian forces are within five miles away, amid shelling and attacks on the city’s outskirts. If Pokrovsk falls, Russia will be in a position to more easily gobble up the rest of Donetsk, after which its hold on the whole of Donbass will be secured.

Al Jazeera reviews the situation, utilizing fresh battlefield maps, as follows:

Meanwhile Russian forces continued to press on towards Pokrovsk, a city in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region which has been their focus since they seized Avdiivka in February. They have formed a 29km (18 mile) long salient stretching to the west of Avdiivka since then and are within about 8km (5 miles) of the outskirts of Pokrovsk.

During the past week, Russian forces overran Novohrodivka and entered Hrodivka, two towns east of Pokrovsk. They also claimed to be on the outskirts of Myrnohrad, a town immediately to the east of Pokrovsk.

2/ Russian forces recently advanced in the Pokrovsk direction amid continued offensive operations in the area on September 4.

Geolocated footage published on September 4 indicates that Russian forces recently advanced south of Novohrodivka and marginally advanced west of… pic.twitter.com/PdlGexfStd

— Institute for the Study of War (@TheStudyofWar) September 5, 2024

With all eyes on Pokrovsk in Ukraine and Kursk in Russia, the White House is still said to mulling greenlighting long-range missiles for Kiev, and their possible use on targets inside Russia.

The latest news wire out of Washington and from the administration is that the “US sees little value in sending Ukraine long-range ATACMS” systems.