President Vladimir Putin visited Russia’s Kursk region for the first time since Moscow claimed that it drove Ukrainian forces out of the area last month, the Kremlin said Wednesday. Putin visited the region bordering Ukraine the previous day, according to the Kremlin. Ukrainian forces made a surprise incursion into Kursk in August 2024 in one of its biggest battlefield successes in the more than three-year war. The incursion was the first time Russian territory was occupied by an invader since World War II and dealt a humiliating blow to the Kremlin. Since the end of 2023, Russia has mostly had the advantage on the battlefield, with the exception of Kursk. Ukraine, the U.S. and South Korea said that North Korea sent up to 12,000 troops to help the Russian army take back control of Kursk, and Russia said on April 26 that its forces had pushed out the Ukrainian army. Kyiv officials denied the claim. Putin’s unannounced visit appeared to be an effort to show Russia is in control of the conflict – even though its full-scale invasion of its neighbor has been slow and costly in terms of casualties and equipment – amid recent U.S. and European proposals for a ceasefire that Putin has effectively rejected. Video broadcast by Russian state media showed that Putin visited Kursk Nuclear Power Plant-2, which is still under construction, and met with selected volunteers behind closed doors. Many of the volunteers wore clothes emblazoned with the Russian flag and the Latin letters “Z” and “V”, which are symbols of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “What you are doing now during this difficult situation for this region, for this area, and for the country, will remain with you for the rest of your life as, perhaps, the most meaningful thing with which you were ever involved,” Putin said as he drank tea with the volunteers. Ukraine’s surprise thrust into Kursk and its ability to hold land there was a logistical feat, carried out in secrecy, that countered months of gloomy news from the front about Ukrainian forces being pushed backward by the bigger Russian army. Kyiv’s strategy aimed to show that Russia has weaknesses and that the war isn’t lost. It also sought to distract Russian forces from their onslaught in the eastern Donetsk region of Ukraine. The move was fraught with risk. Analysts noted that it could backfire and open a door for Russian advances in Ukraine by further stretching Ukrainian forces that are short-handed along the roughly 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line. The incursion didn’t significantly change the dynamics of the war. Putin told acting Gov. Alexander Khinshtein that the Kremlin supported the idea of continuing monthly payments to displaced families that still couldn’t return to their homes. Putin said that he would back a proposal to build a museum in the region to celebrate what acting Gov. Alexander Khinshtein described as “the heroism of our defenders and the heroism of the region’s residents.” Disgruntled residents had previously shown their disapproval over a lack of compensation in rare organized protests. Russia’s Ministry of Defense said that its air defenses shot down 159 Ukrainian drones across the country overnight, including 53 over the Oryol region and 51 over the Bryansk region. In Ukraine, Russian drone attacks killed two people and wounded five others in the northern Sumy region, the regional administration said. In the Kyiv region, four members of a family were injured when debris from a downed drone hit their home, according to the regional administration. Russia launched 76 Shahed and decoy drones overnight at Ukraine, the Ukrainian air force said.
