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Ukraine said Tuesday it has no interest in holding territory it captured in Russia's Kursk region long term, but in the meantime, it can complicate Moscow's efforts to move more troops to the front battle lines in eastern Ukraine.
"Unlike Russia, Ukraine does not need other people's property," Ukraine Foreign Ministry spokesman Georgiy Tykhy told reporters in Kyiv. "Ukraine is not interested in taking the territory of the Kursk region, but we want to protect the lives of our people."
Tykhy defended Ukraine's actions as "absolutely legitimate."
"The sooner Russia agrees to restore a just peace ... the sooner the raids by the Ukrainian defense forces into Russia will stop," he told reporters, although no peace talks are under way.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, "It should be emphasized that the operation in the Kursk region helps the frontline because it does not allow Russia to transfer additional units to the Donetsk region - complicates its military logistics."
Zelenskyy said Russia has used the Kursk region to launch more than 2,000 cross-border strikes on Ukrainian territory since June. He said Ukrainian forces have captured areas used to launch such strikes during the weeklong incursion that has captured 1,000 square kilometers of land.
Watch related report by Anita Powell:
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Ukrainian forces have captured more than two dozen settlements in the biggest attack by a foreign army on Russian soil since World War II. Russia said Tuesday it had fended off new attacks in Kursk, but more than 120,000 people have fled the area.
Alexander Bortnikov, head of Russia's FSB Security Service, said in a statement that Ukraine had carried out the attack "with the support of the collective West."
Ukraine said it was imposing movement restrictions in a 20-kilometer zone in Sumy region along the border with the Kursk region, due to an "increase in the intensity of hostilities" and "sabotage" activities.
Since launching its invasion in February 2022, Russia has captured territory in southern and eastern Ukraine and subjected Ukrainian cities to missile and drone barrages. But Ukraine's offensive into Kursk was its biggest cross-border action since the Russian invasion and it caught Moscow off guard.
"They didn't protect the border," a Ukrainian serviceman who took part in the offensive and identified himself as Ruzhyk told Agence France-Presse in Ukraine's Sumy region.
"They only had anti-personnel mines scattered around trees at the side of the road and a few mines that they managed to quickly throw along the highways," he said.
Ukrainian military analyst Mykola Bielieskov told AFP, "Russian complacency prevailed."
"Russia assumed that since it had initiative elsewhere, Ukraine wouldn't dare to do things we've seen," he said, referring to months of Russian advances along the eastern front. Russia controls much of Ukraine's eastern flank.
Russian President Vladimir Putin told top security officials on Monday that Ukraine's incursion into Kursk was meant to "sow discord" and "destroy the unity and cohesion of Russian society." He also said Ukraine wanted to "improve its negotiating position" for any future peace talks with Moscow.
Zelenskyy defended his country's surprise incursion into Kursk.
"Russia brought war to others. Now it is coming home," Zelenskyy said in a video posted on the social media platform Telegram.
Some material in this report came from Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
The Voice of America provides news and information in more than 40 languages to an estimated weekly audience of over 326 million people. Stories with the VOA News byline are the work of multiple VOA journalists and may contain information from wire service reports.