MOSCOW: Russia said Friday it retook a border village from Ukraine in its Kursk region, where Moscow has this month reclaimed much of the territory that Kyiv held on to since last summer.
Ukraine launched a ground assault into the Russian border region in August, capturing large swathes of territory including the town of Sudzha, but over the past three weeks Moscow has taken much of it back.
Russia’s defense ministry said its troops had taken control of the village of Gogolevka, which lies close to the Ukrainian border and west of the town of Sudzha, which Moscow claimed back control of earlier in March.
Russia has moved several hundred civilians who were previously trapped in areas under Ukraine’s control eastwards, away from the fighting.
Ukraine still controls a strip of the Kursk region along the border.
Kyiv had hoped it could use land in the Kursk region as a bargaining chip in future peace talks with Russia, which has seized parts of eastern and southern Ukraine since its offensive began in 2022.
Visiting the Kursk region earlier this month, President Vladimir Putin called on troops to reclaim the entire Russian region.
He also called on Ukrainian troops to surrender and said Moscow would treat them as “terrorists.”
Russia’s Defense Ministry on Friday accused Ukraine of attacking Russian energy facilities in the past 24 hours despite a moratorium on striking each other’s energy infrastructure.
The ministry said Ukraine attacked a gas metering station in Kursk region and power facilities in Belgorod, and tried to hit an oil refinery in the Saratov region.
