"It's creating a real dilemma for Putin," said Joe Biden in his first substantive comments about the operation, which appeared to have caught the Russians off guard.
During a meeting with reporters in New Orleans, the U.S. president assured that he has been briefed every four to five hours over the past six to eight days about Ukraine's actions.
According to Reuters, around 1,000 Ukrainian troops breached the Russian border on August 6 with tanks and armored vehicles, aiming to compel Russia to redeploy forces from Ukraine to defend its own territory.
The U.S. has supplied billions in defensive weaponry to Ukraine for repelling the Russian invasion, and while President Biden permitted Ukraine to use U.S. weapons against military targets in Russia supporting the offensive against Kharkiv, the White House emphasized it had no role in Ukraine's recent unannounced incursion into the Kursk region, which prompted a retaliatory strike by Russian forces.
Putin suggested that Ukraine's operation was intended to bolster Kyiv's negotiating leverage and slow the Russian advance, while U.S. officials remain uncertain about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's precise objectives, with their intentions still not fully clear.
Source: Reuters/IAR/whitehouse.gov
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