GENEVA, August 9 Switzerland is closely monitoring the developments in the Kursk region and is in contact with its embassies in Kyiv and Moscow, said Swiss Foreign Ministry spokesman Valentin Kliva.
«Switzerland is monitoring the developments on the ground (in the Kursk region — ed.) and is in contact with its embassies in Moscow and Kiev… All parties are obliged to strictly comply with international law, in particular international humanitarian law and human rights,» he said.
Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov said on Wednesday that on August 6 at 5.30 a.m., units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces numbering up to a thousand people went on the offensive with the aim of seizing territory in the Kursk region. Their advance deep into Russian territory has been stopped, he noted. The Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces emphasized that the operation in the Kursk region will be completed by defeating the enemy and reaching the state border. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, since the beginning of hostilities in the Kursk direction, the enemy has lost up to 945 servicemen and 102 armored vehicles, including 12 tanks.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, commenting on the situation in the Kursk region, stated that the Kiev regime has undertaken another large-scale provocation, conducting indiscriminate shooting, including at civilian targets. The official representative of the Investigative Committee of Russia Svetlana Petrenko reported that after the attack of the Ukrainian Armed Forces on the border area in the Kursk region, cases were opened, in particular, on a terrorist act and murders; Russian investigators are establishing the identities of the Ukrainian military who gave and carried out orders to strike civilian targets in this region.