Russian President Vladimir Putin is facing pressure to counter Ukrainian offensives during a week-long incursion that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described as a border security operation on Monday night.

“Our operations are purely a security matter for Ukraine – the liberation of the border area from the Russian military,” Zelenskyy said in an overnight address.

Zelenskyy’s remarks were among his first public statements on the matter and came just hours after Ukrainian General Oleksandr Syrskyi reported that Ukrainian troops had captured nearly 400 square miles of Russian territory in the Kursk region.

Moscow declared a federal state of emergency in Kursk last week as Ukrainian troops, tanks, and drones surged across the border, prompting hundreds of thousands of Russian civilians to evacuate.

Zelenskyy stated that since the beginning of June, Ukraine’s Sumy oblast, bordering Kursk, has been heavily bombarded with over 2,000 drone, artillery, and mortar strikes originating solely from Kursk.

“It is only fair to destroy Russian terrorists where they are, where they launch their strikes from,” the Ukrainian president said.

Reports emerged this week suggesting that Ukrainian forces have started digging trenches in the Kursk region, indicating Kyiv’s intention to maintain a long-term presence in Russia – a strategy some believe aims to draw Russian forces away from the front lines.

Digital has not been able to confirm whether Ukrainian troops have begun digging their own trenches, but on Tuesday signaled that Putin is doing what he can to ensure that the fighting that has reached his homeland does not become a part of his protracted war with Ukraine.

Russian bloggers on Telegram have asserted that Putin has appointed Alexei Dyumin, a former bodyguard to the Kremlin chief and allegedly one of the , as the new security official responsible for ending Ukraine’s operation in Kursk.

Digital could not independently verify the appointment of Dyumin as overseer of Kursk operations, but expert analyst on the Ukraine-Russian war and team lead of the Institute for the Study of War’s Russia Team and Geospatial Intelligence Team, George Barros, said Ukraine’s push into Kursk is forcing Moscow to re-evaluate its war strategy.

“The Ukrainian operation in Kursk Oblast [has forced] a decision-point on the Kremlin and the Russian military command about whether to view the thousand-kilometer-long international border with northeastern Ukraine as a legitimate frontline that Russia must defend, instead of a dormant area of the theater, as they have treated it since Fall 2022,” he told Digital.

“Russia has spent considerable resources to build fortifications along the international border area but has not allocated the manpower and material to significantly man and defend those fortifications,” Barros added.

Barros argued that Ukraine’s successful cross-border invasion has forced Russia to not only , but also how it will continue its force posture in Ukraine.

“This conclusion will narrow the flexibility Russia has enjoyed in committing manpower and material to its ongoing offensive efforts in Ukraine, and the Russian military command will have to consider the requirements for border defense when determining what resources it can allocate to future large-scale offensive and defensive efforts in Ukraine,” Barros said.

Ukraine’s offensive in Russia has left the international community wondering if Kyiv has reshaped how and where the more than two-year-long war will continue to be fought. Though Zelenksyy has argued that shifting the war to Putin’s doorstep is the only way forward in ending the conflict.

“Russia must be forced into peace if Putin wants to continue waging war so badly,” he said Monday night.

Zelenskyy has repeatedly called on the U.S. and its international allies to allow to hit Russian military targets and logistics hubs to counter the barrage of missile fire it has endured on a daily basis. However, Washington has repeatedly denied approval for “long-range” operations.

The Biden administration in May reversed its complete opposition to inter-border attacks in Russia and said Ukraine could use U.S. weapons to hit strategic targets to stop attacks targeting Ukraine’s Kharkiv region from Russia’s Belgorod oblast.

However, according to reports over the last week, Kyiv has targeted at least six western Russian regions on or near the Ukrainian border including the Bryansk, Oryol, Kursk, Lipestk, Belgorod and Voronezh oblasts in a series of drone strikes.

The Pentagon last week confirmed that Ukraine’s current operations fall within Washington’s policy when it comes to Kyiv’s permitted use of .

The Biden administration has repeatedly said it does not approve the use of long-range strikes in Russia, though it has refused to outline what range is considered permissible for Ukraine to continue hitting.

However, Zelenskyy continues to press Washington for more, warning that the bans on long-range targets are prolonging the war.

“We see how useful this can be for bringing peace closer,” he said.

“We need appropriate permissions from our partners to use long-range weapons,” Zelenskyy urged. “This is something that can significantly advance the just end of this war, as well as save thousands of Ukrainian lives from Russian terror.”