Russia says its forces retake two settlements in Kursk region

27/2/2025 6:18

Russian forces have

recaptured two settlements in the country's western Kursk region

where Ukrainian troops broke across the border and seized a

chunk of territory last August, the Russian Defence Ministry

said on Wednesday.



But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy praised his

troops for "good results" in Kursk and lauded frontline units in

Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine for launching counterattacks

against Russian forces.



Reuters could not independently confirm battlefield

accounts by either side in the three-year-old conflict.



The Russian Defence Ministry said its forces had retaken

the villages of Pogrebki and Orlovka, north of the town of

Sudzha, close to the Russia-Ukraine border.



The ministry statement also said Russian forces had

struck Ukrainian units and positions near more than a dozen

settlements, including several around Sudzha.



Official Russian reports have for weeks been relating

how Moscow's troops have been recovering territory seized in

last August's Ukrainian incursion into the region.



Zelenskiy, in his nightly video address, noted it was

nearly seven months that Ukrainian forces "have been holding the

buffer zone on the aggressor's territory in Russia. They have

almost become used to it."



The president also offered praise to units in Donetsk

region "who are repelling assaults and counterattacking."



Russia's military for months has been reporting a slow

but steady advance westward across Donetsk region, capturing

village after village.



The troops have been closing in for several seeks on the

key logistics centre of Pokrovsk, where Ukraine's sole colliery

producing coking coal for steelmaking has been closed down as

Russian forces approach.



After failing in their initial attempt to advance on the

capital Kyiv in the weeks following the February 2022 full-scale

invasion of Ukraine, Moscow's troops have focused on capturing

Donbas -- made up of Donetsk and Luhansk regions.



Russia proclaimed the annexation of four regions in 2022

-- Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, though it does

not have full control of any of them. In 2014, it annexed the

Crimea peninsula after a popular revolt in Kyiv prompted a

Russia-friendly president to flee the country.