Retaken control of two villages in Kursk region, claims Russia

Russia said on Monday that its forces had retaken control of two villages in the western Kursk region from Ukraine.

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The governor of Russia’s Kursk region Alexei Smirnov also ordered the evacuation of residents of all settlements in the province’s Rylsky and Khomutovsky districts situated within 15km of the Ukrainian border.

Russian forces have been battling Ukrainian troops in Kursk region since August 6, when Kyiv surprised Moscow with the biggest foreign attack on Russian soil since World War Two. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy had said on Friday that Ukraine’s Kursk incursion had slowed Russian forces in eastern Ukraine.

A senior Russian commander and pro-Kremlin war bloggers said last week that Russia had taken back control of about 10 settlements in the region, an assertion Reuters was unable to confirm.

Russian forces are pressing forward in eastern Ukraine towards Pokrovsk, a key rail and logistics hub for Kyiv's forces. Seizing it would be a step towards Russia's objective of capturing the whole of the Donetsk region.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday also ordered the regular size of the Russian army to be increased by 180,000 troops to 1.5 million active servicemen in a move that would make it the second largest in the world after China’s.