(Moscow) The Russian army said on Thursday that it had recaptured ten localities conquered by the Ukrainians in the Russian border region of Kursk in two days, where Kyiv’s forces had advanced over 1,000 km.2 early August.
“During offensive operations, units of the Northern group of troops liberated 10 settlements in two days,” the Russian Defense Ministry said on Telegram.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said at the same time that a Russian counter-offensive was underway in the Kursk region, while assuring that Moscow’s response was “in line with the Ukrainian plan”, without providing further details.
The Ukrainian army entered the Kursk region by surprise on August 6, quickly claiming to have seized more than 1,000 km2 and a hundred localities.
The front in this Russian region has been largely frozen for the past two weeks, with neither side claiming any advances, unlike what is happening on the front in eastern Ukraine where Russian troops, on the offensive, are now only a few kilometres from the town of Pokrovsk, a major logistics hub.
According to the Telegram channel Rybar, which is close to the Russian military, the fighting in the Kursk region is mainly taking place around the town of Snagosti, in the Ukrainian-controlled western part of the region.
It was in this area that the Ukrainian army had destroyed several bridges in recent weeks, forcing the Russians to build pontoons to span a river, the Seim.
Images have been posted on social media by Russian military bloggers over the past two days, which they claim show an attack by Russian tanks on Ukrainian positions in the Kursk region and a group of Ukrainian soldiers being taken prisoner.
Despite the Ukrainian offensive in Russia, most of the fighting is taking place in eastern Ukraine.