Elaborating on Ukraine’s biggest pushback against Russia in two years, Zelenskyy said the operation was also aimed at forcing Russia “to be ready for a fair peace”.
The Ukrainian president, however, refused to divulge much about the operation, which he called “very complicated … requiring the assistance of allies”.
“Operation in Kursk is part of a large military-diplomatic operation and believe me…all we are doing is done only to force Russia to be ready for a fair peace. The operation in Kursk prevented them from capturing our Sumy region. It was very complicated for us without the assistance of partners for a long period of time. It was difficult for us to take the initiative once again…we needed to do that”, Zelenskyy told the TOI when asked about the Kursk operation.
He further said: “So that is one of the stages of this concept (military-diplomatic operation) and we have seen that…and it worked but worked only for what I am mentioning here. I can’t give you all the details about the goals of our actions. But when it is finished it will be obvious why did we do that.”
‘Plan to reconstruct Ukraine’
Zelenskyy also spoke about the path to recovery that Ukraine deeply awaits after two years of full-blown war which has caused immense damage to Kyiv’s infrastructure and economy.
He said his government will need to have more meetings to pan out a plan to reconstruct Ukraine.
“Our economic experts and economic teams will be talking about the recovery. We simply didn’t have enough time. We originally wanted to have a one-on-one meeting for half an hour…but instead we had a two-and-a-half hour…so I believe we’ll have more meetings and economic direction is something that will be discussed (by Ukraine’s economic team),” Zelenskyy told TOI.
The Ukrainian President said he wished to increase the nation’s economic turnaround by three to five times and guaranteed that he would “amplify” India’s support in propelling Kyiv’s economy.
“I am interested in increasing our economic turnaround by three to five times and that’s not too much…at least we are returning to pre-warring decade. We can do that. We want to do that. We will be open in all directions and there is not a single direction where we can increase the turnaround and whatever the Indian side would support… we will amplify…that’s something I can guarantee,” Zelenskyy added.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday visited Ukraine’s capital Kyiv to hold talks with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy amid the ongoing war with Russia.
It was the first-ever visit to Ukraine by an Indian Prime Minister after Ukraine became independent in 1991. The PM was accompanied by external affairs minister S Jaishankar, national security advisor Ajit Doval among others.