Putin Has 'Mission Accomplished’ Moment In Touring Liberated Kursk Region

On Tuesday into Wednesday Russian President Vladimir Putin had a 'mission accomplished’ moment by visiting Kursk region for the first time since its full liberation from Ukrainian forces.

It was in late April which Putin first announced that all Ukrainian troops have been booted out and retreated, after their risky cross-border raid which started in early August, and resulted in over six months of Ukraine forces occupying hundreds of square kilometers of Russian land.

Kremlin.Ru, via Reuters

Still, in touring some industrial sites in Kursk, including the construction site of the new Kursk 2 nuclear power plant in the city of Kurchatov, he admitted that the situation in the Kursk border region remains „difficult”.

Ukraine has continued sending drones on a weekly basis into these southern regions, and there’s the constant threat of cross-border shelling, and even ongoing attempts at limited ground incursions. These border threats are far from fully over.

Moscow had controversially deployed thousands of North Korean troops to Kursk over the last several months in order to help national forces drive out the Ukrainian occupiers.

Putin during the visit also held meetings with Governor Aleksandr Khinshtein and local officials on Tuesday, the Kremlin and state media said. He thanked volunteers in the war-ravaged border region for the „the noble, important and… unfortunately, dangerous” work that they had been doing.

State media footage showing Putin in a Kursk nuclear facility:

A year ago the Western Media told you Ukraine had „invaded Russia” when they began their suicide mission into Kursk.

Today Vladimir Putin visted a new Nuclear power facility being built in that same Kursk region.

In fantasy Ukraine achieves, in reality Russia moves forward. pic.twitter.com/9ZkMhq3XZ1

— Chay Bowes (@BowesChay) May 21, 2025

„You and I are a team, and the whole country today is one united team. And this is the unquestionable success of all our endeavors. This is a necessary condition for achieving all our goals,” he said.

Meanwhile, Western allies are not happy that President Trump is not pressuring Moscow harder, and has thus far refrained from slapping even more sanctions on Russia.

Sumy next as part of Russia’s envisioned border 'security buffer’ zone?

#Putin hints that #Russia will eventually make Sumy #Russian during a meeting in Kursk. pic.twitter.com/C3GWeQdEbC

— Maimunka News (@MaimunkaNews) May 21, 2025

Bloomberg previously reported that in the latest communications with European allies, Trump supposedly „repeated a number of the Kremlin’s talking points” while painting a general picture of Russian military momentum and gains on the battlefield.

And according to the NY Times, „images and videos of the trip released by the Kremlin were seemingly aimed at projecting a return to normality, even as fighting still raged in one corner of the region.”

As for 'normality’ – fresh statements from Secretary of State Marco Rubio before a Senate hearing on Tuesday seemed to echo a desire to present things in eastern Europe as 'normal’ – or at least not getting too distracted by…

„But by the same token, I would say there’s a flip side to that, and that is every minute we spend, every dollar we spend on this conflict in Europe is distracting both our focus and our resources away from the potential for a much more serious, much more cataclysmic confrontation in the Indo-Pacific,” Rubio told senators.