Despite the Russian military’s assertions, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday that his troops are still fighting in the Russian region of Kursk.
“Our units are continuing active defensive operations in the [Russian] regions of Kursk and Belgorod,” Zelensky said in a post on X. He also said fighting continues near Pokrovsk and Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine.
On Saturday, the Russian military claimed the Kursk region had been “completely liberated.” It said Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov had reported to Russian President Vladimir Putin that all Ukrainian units in the Kursk region had been defeated and that only individual Ukrainian soldiers were still “trying to hide.”
On Sunday afternoon, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke to his generals on the phone, congratulating them on succeeding in liberating the Kursk region.
“Putin congratulated them on their victory and thanked them for their heroic work,” Interfax news agency quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying.
It is not currently possible to provide an accurate, independent overview of the situation in the region.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces unexpectedly advanced across the border into Russian territory near Kursk in early August last year and initially gained up to 1,300 square kilometres of Russian territory, before being pushed back. Kiev aimed to force Moscow to redeploy troops and take Russian pressure off the fronts in eastern Ukraine.
The Ukrainian General Staff on Saturday also rejected Russia’s claim that it had recaptured Kursk as a “propaganda move.” Fighting continued not only in some parts of the Kursk region, but also in the neighbouring Russian region of Belgorod, Ukraine’s General Staff said.
Deaths, injuries in attack on Donetsk
At least three people were killed in a Russian glide bomb attack on the small town of Kostyantynivka in eastern Ukraine, according to the public prosecutor’s office on Sunday.
Four other residents were injured when the two bombs hit private properties, the public prosecutor’s office in the Donetsk region said on Telegram.
A married couple, aged 47 and 48, and a 78-year-old pensioner were killed, it said. The four people who were injured are aged between 67 and 83.
Photos accompanying the post published by the authorities show extensive destruction to buildings and a burning car.
The information provided could not immediately be independently verified.
Russia controls large parts of the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk, one of the four regions of Ukraine it has annexed in the course of the war launched by Moscow in 2022.
The Kremlin seeks to overpower and control Donetsk, which borders Russia.
Man killed in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk during Russian drone barrage
One man was killed and a 14-year-old girl injured in an overnight Russian drone attack on the south-eastern Ukrainian city of Pavlohrad, authorities reported early on Sunday.
Two residential buildings were damaged in the attack, the Dnipropetrovsk regional military governor Serhiy Lyssak wrote on Telegram.
He said there was also damage in other towns in the area and that 13 drones were shot down.
In the southern Odessa region, a 35-year-old woman was injured when a drone hit a three-storey residential building, the public prosecutor’s office said.
It released a photo showing severe damage to the building’s facade, caused either by direct hits or falling debris from downed drones.
Ukrainian air defences recorded a total of 149 Russian drone attacks during the night. According to the reports, 57 projectiles were shot down and 67 were lost.
Ukraine has been defending itself against a full-scale Russian invasion for more than three years.