Ukraine wants more negotiating power as forces advance into Russia, humiliating Moscow

Ukraine's audacious incursion into Russian border territory a week agocame as a surprise to many officials within the government in Kyiv, a senior Ukrainian official familiar with the matter told CNBC Monday — only a handful of people knew about the operation beforehand,and government officials have since been ordered to be in "silent mode" as to its strategic goals.

Ukraine's initial silence with regards to the cross-border raid, and ongoing tactic of "strategic ambiguity" designed to keep Russia "off balance,"appears to have been key to its initial success and current advances into the Kursk region.

Russia's slow and sluggish response to what Russian President Vladimir Putin branded a "large-scale provocation" has also exposed weaknesses in its military command, and has humiliated its leadership. 

One week on from the launch of the border raid and information is slowly emerging as to the size and scale of Ukraine's operation on Russian soil, and its objectives.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated on Sunday that it was designed "to put pressure on the aggressor Russia" and to push "the war into the aggressor's territory."

Revealing further details in his first public comments on the Kursk operation, Ukraine's top military commander, Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, said Monday that Ukraine now controls around 1,000 square kilometers (386 square miles) of the region.

Russian official Alexei Smirnov, the acting governor of the Kursk region, told a solemn-looking Putin via videoconference Monday that Ukraine controlled 28 settlements. Analysts at the Institute for the Study of War said geolocated footage suggests Ukraine controls a higher number of around 40 settlements, as of Monday.

Several thousand Ukrainian troops are now