Russians fight to clear Kursk as Ukrainians hole up in monastery, war bloggers say

By Lucy Papachristou

(Reuters) - Moscow's troops were waging fierce battles on Thursday in Russia's western Kursk region against Ukrainian forces, including hundreds holed up in a monastery, in an effort to rout them from Kyiv's last major foothold in sovereign Russian territory, war bloggers said.

Ukrainian troops stormed across the border into Russia last August and seized almost 1,400 square km (540 square miles) of Kursk in an attack which took Moscow by surprise. Kyiv said it aimed to hold onto a slice of the region to use as a bargaining chip in future negotiations to end the war.

Russia responded by sending in heavy reinforcements, including North Korean soldiers, and within weeks the area under Ukraine's control had shrunk dramatically.

The latest battlefield maps from Deep State, a Ukrainian open-source data project, show that Kyiv holds just a narrow sliver of Kursk.

Russia's Defence Ministry and pro-Russian war bloggers reported heavy battles underway in Gornal, Guevo and Oleshnya, neighbouring villages that hug the border with Ukraine's Sumy region.

Mash, a Telegram channel close to Russia's security services, said Ukraine was trying to organise its defence on the highlands around Gornal, where it said more than 300 soldiers were hunkering down in the Gornalsky St. Nicholas Belogorsky monastery.

There was no immediate comment from Ukraine and Reuters could not independently verify the reports. The monastery's Telegram channel made no mention of military operations in the area.

Mash said there was an underground passage beneath the monastery "through which the Ukrainian Armed Forces are evacuating and delivering ammunition for long-term defence."

The SHOT Telegram channel also said Ukraine was pulling reserves into Gornal via the monastery's passageway.

The war blogger Dnevnik Desantnika (Paratrooper's Diary) said that should Ukraine lose its holds in Guevo and Gornal, Russian troops would face little resistance in storming across the border into Ukraine's Sumy region.

"The territory and landscape in this area are such that if the enemy loses this part, then there is lowland, and the enemy will not be able to hold the defence of the Sumy region," Dnevnik Desantnika wrote.

Kyiv's top general warned last week that Russian forces were stepping up attacks along Ukraine's northeastern border in a bid to break into Sumy, adding that his troops were conducting defensive and assault operations to retain a buffer zone inside Kursk.

Roman Alekhin, whose Telegram channel has over 180,000 subscribers, said Ukraine will try to hold onto the high ground around Gornal "with all their might, regardless of losses."

(Reporting by Lucy Papachristou; Editing by Andrew Heavens)