Ukraine has received almost €4.2 billion from the European Union. It is the EU's first payment under the Ukraine Facility, a finance plan that aims to support the country's recovery in the face of Russia's aggression. The Ukraine Facility went into force on March 1 of this year. The four-year plan, in which the EU will provide up to €50 billion in grants and loans, aims to play a significant role in Ukraine's recovery, reconstruction and modernization. The announcement comes after Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged the Ukrainian incursion into Russia for the first time in a video message. On Monday, Zelenskyy said the military operation in the Kursk region is an attempt to stop Russian shelling. He said, "It is only fair to destroy Russian terrorists where they are, where they launch their strikes from". The Ukrainian President said that this tactic can be useful for bringing peace closer and added that "Russia must be forced into peace". The European Union is not involved in Ukraine's military offensive in Russia but notes that they support Ukraine's right to defend itself, according to Nabila Massrali, an EU Commission spokesperson. "The EU is not involved and not commenting on the operational developments on the front line," Massrali said. "We are fully standing behind Ukraine's legitimate exercise of its inherent rights for self-defense and efforts to restore its territorial integrity and sovereignty and to push back and fight the illegal aggression by Russia." Russia said on Tuesday that its forces checked an effort by Ukrainian troops to expand a stunning weeklong incursion into the Kursk region, as a Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman said Kyiv has no intention of occupying Russian territory. Russian army units, including fresh reserves, aircraft, drone teams and artillery forces, stopped Ukrainian armoured mobile groups from moving deeper into Russia near the Kursk settlements of Obshchy Kolodez, Snagost, Kauchuk and Alexeyevsky, a Russian defense Ministry statement said. Meanwhile, Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Heorhii Tykhyi said the cross-border operation was aimed at protecting Ukrainian land from long-range strikes launched from Kursk. "Ukraine is not interested in taking the territory of the Kursk region, but we want to protect the lives of our people," Tykhyi was quoted as saying by local media. — Euronews
