UNITED NATIONS, August 13. /TASS/. The Kiev authorities’ attack on the Kursk Region is a clear sign they made an unambiguous choice in favor of escalation and further hostilities, Russia's first deputy permanent representative to the UN Dmitry Polyansky has said.
"This is the best counterargument for all our international partners who have claimed that the Kiev regime is drifting towards a peace solution of the Ukrainian crisis. The answer has been received: it is an unambiguous choice in favor of escalation and hostilities. May nobody say later that we did not warn everybody," he said at an informal Arria formula meeting of the UN Security Council on crimes committed by the Ukrainian army and nationalist battalions.
Polyansky emphasized that the attack on the Kursk Region was "a move that Ukraine will undoubtedly regret bitterly."
Ukraine’s massive attack on the Kursk Region began on August 6. A missile threat was repeatedly declared. As a result of the attack, according to the latest statistics, 12 civilians were killed and 121 others, including 10 children wounded; 69 are in hospitals. The condition of 17 of them is serious. More than 8,000 have left or been evacuated from the border districts of the Kursk Region.
According to the Russian Defense Ministry, Kiev has lost up to 2,030 troops, 35 tanks and 31 armored personnel carriers since the beginning of hostilities in the Kursk Region. Major-General Apty Alaudinov, the deputy head of the Russian Armed Forces' Main Military and Political Directorate and commander of the Akhmat commando forces, has said that the situation near Kursk has been taken under control. The Ukrainian army is currently suffering the maximum losses since the beginning of the incursion.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on August 12 that Ukraine will "certainly receive a worthy response" to the attack on the Kursk Region and that all of Russia's goals will be achieved.