Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the military invasion of the Russian Kursk region was intended to create a buffer zone to prevent further attacks from Moscow across the border.
This is the first time that Mr Zelensky has clearly stated the aim of the operation launched on 6 August.
He had previously stated that the aim of the operation was to protect communities in the neighboring Sumy region from constant shelling.
In his evening speech, Zelensky said: “Our main task in defensive operations as a whole now is to destroy as much of Russia’s war potential as possible and to carry out maximum counteroffensives. This includes the creation of a buffer zone on the territory of the aggressor – our operation in the Kursk region.”
Ukrainian air defense units have repelled Russia’s nighttime air strike, including on Kiev, and destroyed all eleven drones that Moscow fired at Ukrainian territory, the Ukrainian Air Force said on Monday.
The drones were destroyed over the regions of Mykolaiv, Cherkasy, Vinnytsia, Kyiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Sumy and Donetsk, the Air Force said via the messaging app Telegram.
According to official sources, Ukraine destroyed a key bridge in the Kursk region and shelled a second one nearby over the weekend, disrupting supply lines, in a spectacular border crossing that began on August 6.
Pro-Kremlin military bloggers acknowledged that the destruction of the first bridge over the Syem River near the town of Glushkovo will hamper the delivery of supplies to Russian forces fighting off the Ukrainian incursion, but Moscow could continue to use pontoons and smaller bridges.
The head of the Ukrainian Air Force, Lieutenant General Mykola Oleshchuk, released a video on Friday of an airstrike that cut the bridge in half.
Less than two days later, Ukrainian troops stormed a second bridge in Russia, according to Lieutenant General Oleshchuk and Russian regional governor Alexei Smirnov.
Russian Telegram channels claimed that a second bridge over the Sejm in the village of Swannoe was hit. According to Russian news site Mash, only one bridge remained intact in the area after the attacks.
If confirmed, the Ukrainian attacks would further complicate Moscow’s attempts to build up its troops in Kursk and evacuate civilians.
Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, General Oleksandr Syrskyi, claimed last week that his troops had advanced more than 1,000 square kilometers (390 square miles) of the region, but it has not been possible to independently verify which areas Ukrainian forces actually control.
Mr Zelensky said the Ukrainian armed forces had achieved “good and much-needed results”.
Analysts believe that Ukraine could try to consolidate its power positions in Russia, but given Kyiv’s limited resources, this would be risky as its own supply lines extending far into Kursk would be at risk.
The incursion demonstrated Ukraine’s ability to seize the initiative and boosted its morale, which had been weakened by a failed counteroffensive last summer and months of arduous Russian gains in the eastern Donbass region.
The invasion of Kursk was similar to Ukraine’s September 2022 lightning operation led by General Syrskyi, in which Ukrainian forces regained control of the northeastern Kharkiv region after taking advantage of a lack of Russian manpower and field fortifications.
On Saturday, Zelensky called on Kyiv’s allies to lift remaining restrictions on the use of Western weapons to attack low-lying targets inside Russia, including Kursk, saying his troops could deprive Moscow of “any opportunity to advance and cause destruction” if they were granted sufficient long-range capabilities.
Meanwhile, Russian ally Belarus has amassed “almost a third” of its army along the border with Ukraine, according to authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko.
Mr Lukashenko told Russian state television that Minsk was a response to the deployment of more than 120,000 Ukrainian troops along the 1,084-kilometre border.
– Agencies
