(CLO) Russian officials said Russia fought on Sunday to push back the last Ukrainian soldiers from the Kursk region, after seven months of Ukrainian attacks and control of this part of Russian territory.
The stepped-up offensive this month has helped Russia shrink the area controlled by Ukraine to about 110 square kilometers, down from more than 1,368 square kilometers Kiev claimed last year, according to open-source maps.
Yuri Podolyaka, one of the most influential pro-Russian military bloggers, said Russia had pushed Ukrainian forces back to the border in some areas, although fierce fighting was still taking place and Ukrainian forces were fighting back as they withdrew.
War map shows Russian troops (red) recapturing much of Kursk, pushing Ukrainian forces back towards the border (yellow). Graphic: ISW
Battlefield maps from both Ukraine and Russia show two Ukrainian army groups merging on the Russian side of the border at Kursk. Russia says it is clearing a large number of mines in the area.
Following US President Donald Trump's call last week to spare the "surrounded" Ukrainian military, President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Russia would guarantee the lives of Ukrainian troops in the region if they surrendered.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Saturday his troops were not surrounded but sounded the alarm over what he said was a new Russian offensive in Ukraine's northeastern Sumy region, which borders Kursk.
Influential pro-Russian military blogger Two Majors said Russian forces' battlefield successes had allowed them to threaten Sumy, but warned that Ukrainian forces had been strengthening their defenses there for some time.
Nearly 400 civilians have been evacuated from the liberated territories of the Kursk Region since March 12, the region's acting governor, Alexander Khinshtein, announced on his Telegram channel on Sunday.
Earlier, the Russian Defense Ministry reported that Russian armed forces had liberated the settlements of Rubanshchina and Zaoleshenka in the Kursk Region over the past 24 hours. "The Northern Combat Group liberated the settlements of Zaoleshenka and Rubanshchina," the statement said.
The ministry also stressed that the Ukrainian armed forces lost a total of more than 67,600 servicemen in the fighting in Kursk, including 220 in the past day.
The fierce battle in the Kursk region has prompted US efforts to end the war. President Putin said on Thursday that Russia supported the ceasefire proposal in principle, but that fighting could not stop until certain key conditions were met or clarified.
Huy Hoang (according to TASS, Reuters)
Source: https://www.congluan.vn/quan-doi-nga-dang-don-cac-luc-luong-ukraine-cuoi-cung-o-kursk-ve-bien-gioi-post338793.html
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