President Zelensky denounced what he considers "an extremely serious fact": his army has taken two Chinese fighters as prisoners (and engaged in combat with four others) recruited by Russian troops at some point in the Donetsk region. "There are documents from these prisoners, bank cards, and personal data. We have information that there are many more than two Chinese citizens in the occupation units. We are now collecting all the data." The President of Ukraine directly pointed to the Xi Jinping government and demanded explanations "for actively participating in the Moscow war."
"Intelligence, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), and relevant units of the Armed Forces are working," said the President of Ukraine. Later, the Foreign Minister of his country, Andrii Sybiha, stated that "Ukraine has summoned the Chinese chargé d'affaires to condemn the alleged participation of Chinese military personnel in the war against Ukraine and demand an explanation."
The claims of these Ukrainian leaders are accompanied by videos showing these prisoners of oriental appearance speaking Chinese. While North Korean troops have been deployed in Kursk, Russian territory, these soldiers, possibly mercenaries, were fighting inside Ukraine along with other Nepalese, Syrian, Sudanese, and Somali mercenaries recruited by organizations like Wagner.
In the latest days of the trade war, a curious meme has emerged in Ukraine: to export goods to the United States, burdened by a 10% tariff, Ukrainians could now choose to approach Belgorod, Russian territory, where their army already controls a fraction of the region to send packages with a 0% tariff, which is what Trump currently imposes on Russia.
This southern oblast of Russia, bordering Kharkiv, seems to be a continuation of the operation in Kursk, which began last August with almost 1,200 kilometers under Ukrainian troops' control and has now been reduced to a small gap that includes the entire area of the border posts.
Yesterday, Zelensky acknowledged this new incursion into Russian territory, east of the previous one. "Today the Commander-in-Chief [of the Ukrainian Army] Oleksandr Sirski separately reported on the situation on the front, including our presence in the Kursk and Belgorod regions," said Zelensky. The President added that his troops continue to "carry out active operations in the border areas of the enemy's territory" and stated that it is "completely fair." "The war must return to where it came from," he added.
Initially, this new incursion, which began secretly two weeks ago, has managed to break through Russian border defenses and has captured several towns starting from Demodovka and Popovka, which are almost on the line but already on the Russian side. The objective, like the first incursion into Kursk, is to force Russia to divert its reserves to that point to prevent the incursion from advancing inland, which ultimately affects Z troops' offensives in the Donbas.
More and more armored vehicles of different origins can be seen on the roads near the front. Yesterday, a video was released showing one of the 100 PC-065B engineer vehicles donated by Japan for the first time, along with a new shipment of 10 old but refurbished T72 tanks from the Czech Republic, which has run out of this type of Soviet weaponry in its arsenals.
Meanwhile, large quantities of ammunition and armored vehicles continue to arrive at the border with Poland, possibly more than at any other time during the invasion, even from the United States.