Ukraine ‘will hold’ Russia’s Kursk region, as Zelensky says occupied area part of his ‘victory plan’

Ukraine “will hold” Russia’s Kursk region following Kyiv’s successful incursion into Moscow’s territory, the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, said in a new interview this week – calling the move part of his “victory plan.”

In Zelensky’s first interview since Ukrainian forces crossed the Russian border and occupied Kursk, he declined to say whether he intends to take more Russian land, as the Kremlin has largely ignored the advance.

“What we do now is part of our victory plan – that’s why I said Kursk is a part of a wider operation,” Zelensky told NBC News. “I wanted to show the victory plan to President Biden, but only after our success in the Kursk region. That’s why I didn’t do it before, but will definitely do it now.”

Zelensky’s “victory plan” apparently does not include bringing the war to an end at the bargaining table, as he visibly winced when NBC reporter Richard Engel floated possible “negotiations” with Zelensky’s Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.

“From our side, we want to end this war,” he said. “The victory plan is mine, and it’s aimed solely at forcing Russia to stop the war to force them to understand that what they’ve done is nonsense.”

Zelensky did not detail the other elements of his plan, citing security reasons.

The Kursk invasion came as a surprise to Kyiv’s allies, as Ukraine’s government kept the mission highly secret until it was accomplished.

“We didn’t inform anyone, and that’s not a matter of distrust; we didn’t inform many institutions in our state inside Ukraine,” Zelensky told Engel. “This is war and information leaks happen all the time – not always through people, it can be through devices or from our plans.”

The Kursk invasion was also meant to prove to the West that Ukraine could bring the war to Russia without triggering an escalation by its nuclear-armed invader.

“What the Ukrainians are doing is, they’re generating some very important strategic effects as it pertains to the Western policies for supporting Ukraine,” the Institute for the Study of War’s Russia team lead George Barros told The Post this week. “The Ukrainians have generated a mountain of counterfactual evidence about Russia’s tolerance for combat operations on Russian soil.”

That idea has particular meaning now that Ukraine has long-range ATACMS missiles that they could fire at military bases inside Russia – attacks President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have so far refused to authorize.

Washington has consistently expressed reticence to OK any military action that could “provoke” Russia further – often to the point of preventing Ukraine from taking what could be game-changing offensive action.

“I mean, [the US was] previously were saying we can’t allow the Ukrainians to do XYZ on Russian soil because that would result in catastrophic escalation, but the Ukrainians sort of flew in the face of that,” Barros said. “And now we have American Strykers [armored vehicles] and British vehicles and German and French stuff rolling around in Russia, showing that actually you can take the war to Russia.”

“You can kill Russians on Russian soil with American-provided weapons, and it doesn’t result in this catastrophic escalation,” he added.

The invasion achieved another objective, according to Zelensky: Convincing at least some Russians – who are told by the Kremlin that the conflict is not a major war – that the fight is “real,” and that Putin does not have their backs.

“Russian people can now see that Putin couldn’t care less about Kursk. His only goal is to continue the war,” he said. “Their army is not as strong as he says, and it is not a ’special military operation,’ as he says. This is a real war and all of his forces are in Ukraine. This is a large-scale war and our operation in Kursk has proved that.”

Still, Zelensky said Ukraine has no intention to keep the Kursk region after the war is over, saying “we don’t need their land.”

“This is [Putin’s] idea to destroy us totally – totally destroy Ukraine and Ukrainians. And we are showing them that their own territories are not safe,” he said. “So if they brought the war to us, we will take it back to their territory.”