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Russia’s defence ministry said on Thursday that its forces had retaken control of Sudzha, the biggest town in its Kursk region held by Ukrainian forces for the past six months.
Ukrainian commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrsky also acknowledged the previous evening that Ukrainian troops had pulled back from parts of the Kursk region and that Russian forces had entered Sudzha, but said fighting was continuing on the outskirts of the town.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said military command in the area was “doing what it should do — preserving as much as possible our soldiers’ lives”.
The Russian offensive in the Kursk salient, supported by North Korean troops, has intensified in recent weeks, as strike drones targeted the road towards Sudzha that Ukraine used to resupply its forces.
Russian President Vladimir Putin visited a command post in Kursk on Wednesday, when he ordered the army to drive Ukraine’s forces out of the region “in the shortest time possible”.
Moscow’s rapid push to retake the area, first seized by Ukrainian forces in August, comes as Russian and US officials gear up for another meeting to discuss an end to the war.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Thursday that the US and Russia are due to hold talks after Kyiv agreed to an initial 30-day ceasefire during a meeting with US officials in Saudi Arabia this week.
A plane carrying Steve Witkoff, US President Donald Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, landed in Moscow, according to Flightradar24. Witkoff, who met Putin in Moscow last month, spoke to Yuri Ushakov, the Russian president’s foreign policy adviser, over the phone on Wednesday, Peskov said.
Russia has said it would not accept any cessation of hostilities in Ukraine that did not include a formal and final settlement of its three-year invasion, a position at odds with the US demand for a quick ceasefire. Peskov said it was too early to say what Russia’s position would be on the talks, according to Interfax.
