Putin will issue an order he avoided issuing before?!

The unexpected action of the Ukrainian army captured hundreds of square kilometers of Russian territory and restored optimism to Ukrainian fighters and people. According to Ukrainian data, 74 settlements in Kursk are under the control of the Ukrainian army.

Some Russian officials try to minimize the successes of the Ukrainian military and claim that Ukrainian penetration into Russia has been stopped.

"The uncontrolled penetration of the enemy has already been stopped. The enemy is already aware that the blitzkrieg he planned has failed," said General Apti Alaudinov, commander of the Chechen special forces unit Akmat.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky compared the situation in the Kursk region to the sinking of the submarine of the same name in 2000, at the beginning of Putin's rule over Russia.

"24 years ago, the Kursk disaster happened, the symbolic beginning of his regime, and now it's the end for him and it's Kursk again," Zelensky said in a speech on Monday.

The spokesman of the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Georgi Tikji, said that Ukraine has no intention of retaining the occupied territory, as Russia is doing in the case of Ukraine. They intend to stop new Russian attacks on the soil of Ukraine, of which there were 2,000 in the last month.

The Russians transferred some units from the Kherson and Zaporizhia bases to Kursk. Ukrainians claim that it is a small number of soldiers, writes the Guardian.

Information has also appeared in Russia that Putin will launch a mass mobilization, which has not happened since the beginning of the war.

Lithuanian Defense Minister Laurinas Kastchunas said on Tuesday that Russia was moving troops from the Kaliningrad region, its Baltic exclave, to the southern Kursk region, which has become the target of an unprecedented Ukrainian cross-border attack.

Kastchunas said this during a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv, and the recording was published on the user account of the Ukrainian leader on the Telegram communication platform.

Putin found a "scapegoat"?

The British Telegraph writes that Putin has appointed one of his former bodyguards to lead a mission to end Ukraine's invasion of Russia.

Alexei Dyumin, who served as Putin's bodyguard during his first two terms in office and is seen by many as a potential successor to the Russian president, has been appointed to oversee the operation to liberate the Kursk region, Russian military bloggers reported on Tuesday.

The move came after Putin vowed to expel Ukraine from Russian soil during a tense meeting with security chiefs on Monday. The Kremlin leader appears to have been looking for a scapegoat among his top military leaders for the operation in Ukraine, the first foreign invasion on Russian soil since World War II.

"The appointment of Alexei Dyumin as a high-ranking official with a full range of powers to resolve the operational crisis in the Kursk region is a sign that the security structures alone and without Moscow's interference were not able to solve the problems," wrote an influential Russian military blogger on Telegram.

"Dyumin's appointment means Putin's team is taking full control of the situation to stop the operational crisis and start solving the problem," the blogger added.

Who is Dyumin?

Dyumin has long been considered a rising star in Putin's entourage, rising to deputy head of the GRU, Russia's military intelligence agency, and is believed to have led special forces in the 2014 annexation of Crimea. He is rumored to have become a Putin favorite after scaring off a bear that attacked one of Putin's private residences in the 2000s.

In 2016, Putin appointed him governor of the Tula region, where he developed a reputation as an efficient and relatively popular administrator that distinguished him from several other former bodyguards. Putin promoted Dyumin to high positions. In May of this year, he was recalled to Moscow and appointed head of the State Council which was seen as preparation for higher office or even becoming Putin's successor.

His new job connected to Ukraine's invasion of Kursk will strengthen his reputation as one of Putin's most trusted lieutenants. Dyumin is under sanctions by Great Britain and the US for his role in the annexation of occupied Crimea and the current war in Ukraine.

It is not known what the goal of Kiev is

Kyiv has not yet disclosed its goals in this penetration into Russian territory, speculating that an important reason is that after the American presidential elections in November and the possible victory of Donald Trump, negotiations could take place if it would retain the territory in the Kursk region, or perhaps Belgorod, had more trump cards in its hands, so an exchange of territories would be possible.

BBC was told that the action in Kursk was planned for months with the intention of Moscow moving troops from other parts of the front line in Ukraine.

"The element of surprise worked," he says.

"We entered easily, with little resistance. On August 6, the first groups crossed at night in several directions, almost immediately reaching the western outskirts of the city of Suja," he said.

This action of the Ukrainian army is mostly supported in the Western world.

"Ukraine has every right to wage war in such a way to paralyze Russia in its aggressive intentions," said Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

On the other hand, in their public comments, Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials want to play down the significance of the largest invasion of foreign troops into Russia since World War II.

Russian media reports on the situation and assures the public that everything is under control. The Russians describe the actions of their troops as "anti-terrorist action", a term used during the war in Chechnya twenty years ago.

Some members of the Russian opposition in exile also commented on the situation in Kursk.

"What is happening in Kursk is terrible. From the first day of the war, I said that Putin would bring death and destruction to the Russian territory and that our country would be forced to pay a high price for his bloody adventurism, and that, unfortunately, happened," said Ilya Yashin, an opposition politician released from prison earlier this month as part of a prisoner exchange.