"Friendly" countries to Russia are silent about the Kursk operation of the Ukrainian Armed Forces

In 10 days of the AFU operation in Kursk Region, almost none of the countries "friendly" to Moscow has so far condemned the first invasion of Russian territory by a foreign state in modern history.

The exception is Syria, whose ruler Bashar al-Assad has been helped by Russia to retain power, Deutsche Welle writes.

on 10 August, the country's Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying that "the Syrian Arab Republic is following with great concern the news about the terrorist attack by Ukrainian forces on the Kursk region of the Russian Federation." The statement said it targeted allegedly civilian targets.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said in response to questions from reporters that Beijing had "paid attention to the current situation" and urged all sides to adhere to the principles of the so-called "cooling down" of the situation, namely:

• hostilities should not spread outward;
• no escalation of the armed conflict should be allowed;
• not to provoke an intensification of fire.

At the same time, in an interview with a Russian TV channel on 15 August, President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko urged Russia and Ukraine to "end the scuffle" and sit down at the negotiating table. In his opinion, the war is favourable only to "high-ranking persons of American origin". He also said that according to the agreements, Russia would provide military assistance to Belarus in case of aggression against it.

According to The Moscow Times, the CSTO countries also did not condemn the actions of the AFU. The website of the organisation said on August 16 that "the CSTO analytical service is working around the clock and is closely monitoring the development of the situation". The organisation only promised that it would implement all the necessary procedures in due time in case Russia requests military assistance.

As is known, as of 15 August, according to the data of the AFU commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskyy, Ukraine controls more than 80 Russian settlements on an area of 1,150 square kilometres.