KURSK REGION. March 12 (Interfax) - Kiev tried to create a strategic foothold in the Kursk region to use it as a bargaining chip in talks with Russia, Russian Armed Forces General Staff Chief Valery Gerasimov said.
Kiev "aimed to create a so-called strategic foothold in the Kursk region to use it later as a bargaining chip in the potential talks with Russia," he said.
"The Ukrainian leadership tried to use the sortie to the territory of the Kursk region to halt the advance of our groups of forces and draw our troops back from Donbas," he said at a meeting chaired by Russian President Vladimir Putin at a command post of the Kursk group of forces.
"This plan of our enemy has failed," he said.