Vladimir Putin on Thursday said his main aim in Ukraine after 30 months of fighting was to capture the eastern Donbas area. The Russian offensive in February 2022 failed in its expansive goal to capture the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, in the west, and Moscow has been unable to take full control of its supposedly annexed oblasts – administrative regions – of Luhansk and Donetsk in the geographical Donbas region. Putin claimed the Ukrainian offensive in Russia’s Kursk region had no effect, and that by bringing “quite well-prepared units” into Kursk from elsewhere, Ukraine had made Moscow’s advance in Donbas quicker. “The enemy weakened itself in key areas, our army has accelerated its offensive operations.” Ukraine’s top military commander, Oleksandr Syrskyi, countered Putin’s narrative in an interview broadcast on Thursday, saying the Kursk incursion was working and that there had been no Russian advances on Pokrovsk, a key sector of the Ukrainian front, for six days. “The enemy hasn’t advanced a single metre in the direction. In other words, our strategy is working,” he told CNN. Syrskyi said the military had also noted a decrease in shelling, and in the intensity of the Russian offensive in other sectors. The Institute for the Study of War wrote this week in an assessment on the Kursk offensive: “The wider impacts of the Ukrainian incursion into Kursk Oblast on the war and any envisioned diplomatic solution to the war are not yet clear, and assessments of these impacts are premature.” Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said on Thursday that Ukraine was “maintaining the defined lines” in the Kursk region and one goal was to show Russians “what is more important to him [Putin]: occupation of the territories of Ukraine or the protection of his population”, while also strengthening Ukraine’s hand for “fair” negotiations. Ukraine has achieved “a lot” in its Kursk offensive into Russia but it’s hard to say how the situation will develop next, the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said on Thursday. “Only the Ukrainians can make the difficult choices that are needed, such as where to deploy their forces and what type of warfare is appropriate in this situation.” Stoltenberg emphasised that Ukraine had the right to self-defence, including having the opportunity to hit military targets on Russian territory. “I am glad that many Nato countries have given that opportunity, and those that still have restrictions have softened the restrictions so that Ukraine can defend itself,” Stoltenberg said. Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and Zelenskiy will meet on Friday in Frankfurt, according to a German government spokesman. The “one-on-one” talks will come as Ukraine’s military backers, including the US, hold their regular Ramstein Group meeting at the German airbase of the same name. The US defence chief, Lloyd Austin, is due to host the meeting. Ukraine’s parliament has approved the appointment of Andrii Sybiha as foreign minister, replacing Dmytro Kuleba as part of the biggest government reshuffle since the full-scale Russian invasion, Peter Beaumont writes. Critics have said that the reshuffle represents a consolidation of power by a small group of Zelenskiy loyalists allied with Andriy Yermak, the head of the president’s office. Zelenskiy has demanded quick results from his new top team – calling on them to deliver more investment into Ukraine’s arms sector, advance negotiations on EU membership, work to secure Ukraine’s financial stability and deliver “more support for the frontline”. The death toll from a Russian missile strike on Ukraine’s city of Poltava rose to 55 with more than 300 wounded, Ukrainian officials said on Thursday. The strike hit the Poltava military communications institute on Tuesday, according to Ukrainian officials who did not specify how many of the victims were military or civilian. The US charged five Russian military officers on Thursday with conducting cyberattacks on civilian systems in Ukraine and other systems in the US and Nato countries. FBI special agent William DelBagno said the WhisperGate malware attack in January 2022 “could be considered the first shot of the war” and was intended to cripple Ukraine’s government and critical infrastructure by targeting financial systems, agriculture, emergency services, healthcare and schools, DelBagno said. All remain at large, wanted along with a civilian Russian hacker for a combined $60m reward. Poland backed away on Thursday from earlier claims that a drone had likely entered its airspace during a Russian attack on Ukraine in August, after a 10-day analysis and search for the object produced no results. General Maciej Klisz, head of the Polish army’s operational command, said it was “a very high probability there was no violation of the airspace of the Republic of Poland on August 26.” He said, however, that violations were likely to happen again during Russian attacks on Ukraine. Ukraine said 75 countries and international organisations have agreed a “shared vision” of measures to ensure the uninterrupted supply of Ukrainian agricultural products and help global food security, in a follow-up meeting to the peace summit hosted by Switzerland in June. They also also committed to additional efforts to implement international law during the online meeting.