Ukraine’s top military commander has pledged to intensify strikes inside Russian territory, promising to expand both the scope and reach of the attacks, according to remarks released on Sunday.
Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrsky told reporters, including AFP, that the ongoing strikes against Russian targets were proving successful and that Ukrainian forces would continue to focus solely on military objectives.
“Of course, we will continue. We will increase the scale and depth,” Syrsky said, vowing that Ukrainian forces would not remain passive. “Simply sitting on the defensive leads to losses of people and territory. We must take action.”
Syrsky’s comments come as diplomatic efforts to end the war appear stalled, with the last direct negotiations between the two sides taking place nearly three weeks ago and no fresh talks scheduled.
In his wide-ranging briefing, Syrsky acknowledged that Russia maintains an edge in drone warfare, particularly in deploying fibre-optic drones that are harder to disrupt through electronic countermeasures. “They have an advantage in both the number and range of these systems,” he admitted.
He also asserted that Ukrainian forces still hold 90 square kilometres (35 square miles) of territory inside Russia’s Kursk region, an area where Kyiv carried out a daring cross-border incursion last August. “These are our preemptive actions in response to a possible enemy offensive,” he explained.
Russia, however, claimed in April that it had re-established full control over the Kursk region and has denied any continuing Ukrainian military presence there.
Moscow currently occupies roughly 20% of Ukraine’s territory and has formally claimed four regions as part of Russia since the full-scale invasion began in 2022. This is in addition to Crimea, which it annexed in 2014.
Kyiv continues to accuse Russia of deliberately undermining any potential peace agreement in order to prolong its offensive and seize further Ukrainian land.
