MOSCOW, August 7. /TASS/. The Kiev regime is attacking the Kursk Region in a bid to show a semblance of activity amid constant failures of its forces in the area of the conflict, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.
"With their barbaric attack in the Kursk Region, Ukrainian Banderites tried to sow panic among residents of the region and demonstrate at least some semblance of activity amid constant failures of the Ukrainian forces in the conflict area. Obviously, expectations by neo-Nazis failed to come true there as well," she said.
She said that overnight into August 6, Ukrainian fighters struck the town of Sudzha in the Kursk Region, and from August 6-7, "Ukrainian neo-Nazis carried out a massive terrorist attack on the Kursk Region, engaging significant infantry forces and heavy armored vehicles." The Russian armed forces, according to Zakharova, "gave a decisive pushback to the enemy, who suffered significant losses."
"Shelling by Ukrainian militants left 24 civilians in the Kursk Region, including six children, were injured. A drone strike on an ambulance killed a paramedic and the driver."
Other attacks
"The criminal Kiev regime continues to strike innocent residents of Russian towns and villages" while it suffers setbacks on the battlefield, Zakharova said.
She pointed to Ukrainian drone attacks on Gorlovka on July 31, Shebekino on August 1, the shelling of Volnovakha with MLRS on August 2, and the massive strike on Lugansk by NATO-provided ATACMS and Storm Shadow long-range missiles.
"All these bloody crimes are taking place amid cynical silence in the West, which continues to cover for its Kiev puppets. All this only reinforces the sense of impunity of Ukrainian neo-Nazis, who are confident that they can get away with any atrocity," the diplomat said. "We call on the international community not to stand aside and to strongly condemn the criminal actions of the Kiev regime."
"None of the criminals will be able to escape punishment. They will answer to the full extent of the law," she warned. "Based on evidence from the Russian Investigative Committee, Russian courts continue to pass sentences to Ukrainian neo-Nazis, who committed grave crimes against civilians."
Deliveries of F-16s
According to Zakharova, on August 4, Ukraine hosted a pompous presentation of F-16 fighter jets that had been handed over by NATO countries, and Vladimir Zelensky "thanked the NATO sponsors for the delivery." The diplomat said, citing the Economist, that the first 10 fighter jets (out of potential total supplies of 79) arrived in Ukraine at the end of July, and their number will increase to 20 by the end of the year. The rest will allegedly be delivered in 2025.
"Deliveries of F-16 fighter jets to the Ukrainian military will not be the 'magic pill' that Kiev is counting on so much. They will not be able to influence the situation on the battlefield and will be consistently destroyed by the Russian Armed Forces," Zakharova stated.
This step, she said, "is in line with the West's policy of escalating the Ukrainian crisis and does not help to create conditions for its settlement by political and diplomatic methods."
"The US and its satellites, by inundating the Kiev regime with ever more deadly weapons, are betting on the continuation of hostilities at any cost. It is obvious that Washington and London have been carried away by dreams of inflicting a 'strategic defeat' on Russia and do not think about the consequences of their reckless actions," Zakharova went on to say.
Extremist statements
The spokeswoman also highlighted the words of the chief of the Main Intelligence Directorate at the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, Kirill Budanov (included in the list of terrorists and extremists in Russia), who reiterated plans to strike the Crimean bridge and noted that work was underway to accomplish the goal. The diplomat also pointed to a statement by Ukrainian Navy Spokesman Dmitry Pletenchuk, who conceded that the Crimean bridge no longer plays as much of a role for military logistics as before and is therefore not a military target.
"It is obvious that the main objective of Kiev terrorists in their manic pursuit of destruction of this civilian facility is to create panic among the peninsula's population and tourists. As a reminder, the Crimean bridge is used for tourist purposes by millions of Russians, including families with children," Zakharova said.
She also turned her attention to a major ongoing effort in Ukraine to demolish monuments and rename toponyms associated with the Great Patriotic War, Russia and Russian culture, which features "particular cynicism and sophisticated 'ingenuity.'" Zakharova mentioned how a sculpture of Vladimir Lenin in the Zhitomir Region was made to look like a monument to Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko recently after someone replaced the figure’s head; and a monument to Soviet soldiers, who gave their lives for the Ukrainian land, was deliberately destroyed in the village of Luka in the Ivano-Frankovsk Region.
The diplomat called it very symbolic that "against the backdrop of this destructive ‘work’ of the Kiev regime, the media learned that a year after the barbaric dismantling of the USSR coat of arms on the Motherland statue in Kiev and its replacement with the Ukrainian trident, corrosion appeared on the new welding seams."
"It is not surprising that the new symbols of Ukrainian "statehood" now are covered with rust, while the government plunders the country and sells it to the West. We are convinced that genuine historical memory can’t be eradicated by such primitive methods. The punishment for the blasphemous crimes carried out by the Kiev regime - state-sponsored vandalism in the memorial area - is inevitable and has no statute of limitations," the diplomat said.
"The abovementioned facts again confirm the relevance of the goals of the special military operation to de-Nazify and demilitarize Ukraine and eliminate threats emanating from its territory. They all will definitely be accomplished," Zakharova said.