The Kursk operation has achieved its main goal — to draw a significant portion of Russian forces away from the Pokrovsk, Kharkiv, and Sumy directions, according to a statement by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a meeting with journalists.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has asserted that Ukraine's defence forces have achieved the Kursk operation's principal objective of drawing Russian soldiers away from the cities of Pokrovsk and Sumy and the Kharkiv front.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has stated that Ukrainian forces continue to conduct operations in Russia's Kursk Oblast and that the situation on the Pokrovsk front in Donetsk Oblast has been stabilised.

All of this begs the question: in the end, was the Kursk offensive worth it? Actually, people have posed that question from the very beginning. When Kiev was deliberating over the invasion, some generals doubted the benefits would be worth the cost.

Ukrainian forces are under intense pressure in Russia's Kursk region, where they grabbed a chunk of land last August and have held on to it through more than seven months of fierce fighting.

Russia's Security Council's Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev attends a meeting of the Council for Science and Education at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in the Moscow region's city of Dubna,