VLADIVOSTOK. Sept 5 (Interfax) - The Russian Armed Forces must do all they can to "drive the enemy out of the Kursk region," Russian President Vladimir Putin said.
"First of all, we must think about the people who are going through serious hardships and are suffering from these terrorist acts. The holy duty of the Armed Forces is to do all they can to drive the enemy from these territories [the Kursk region] and to reliable protect our citizens," Putin said in reply to questions at the plenary session of the Eastern Economic Forum on Thursday.
"Also, the entire country must do all it can to support these people," he said.
"The enemy's goal was to make us become anxious, act in a hurry, redeploy forces from one sector to another, as well as to halt our offensive in key sectors, above all in Donbass, the liberation of which is our top priority," Putin said.
"Has the enemy succeeded? No, it has failed. First, our Armed Forces have stabilized the situation and have started to gradually oust it [Ukrainian troops] from the border areas," he said.
"Second, the main thing is that no steps are being taken to contain our offensive. On the contrary, by redeploying rather large and quite well-trained units to the districts at the border with us, the enemy weakened itself in key sectors, while our forces stepped up the offensive operations," Putin said.