Russia pushes Ukrainian troops from one of their last footholds in Kursk region, army says

By Andrew Osborn

MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russia is close to regaining full control of its western Kursk region after pushing Ukrainian forces from one of their last footholds there, the regional governor and state media said on Tuesday.

Russia's Defence Ministry released video of what it said was the recapture of the settlement of Guyevo set to dramatic music, showing smoke rising into the air from various buildings, a soldier waving the Russian flag from the window of a heavily damaged Orthodox church, and Russian troops carrying out house-to-house checks in case any Ukrainian soldiers were hiding.

Reuters was able to verify the location of the video from file and satellite imagery of the area, but not the date.

There was no immediate comment from Ukraine.

Russia has been trying to eject Ukrainian forces from Kursk since August last year after Kyiv's troops mounted a surprise incursion that embarrassed President Vladimir Putin and which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy hoped would give him a bargaining chip in any future talks.

But Russia has retaken a swath of territory inside Kursk in recent weeks, pushing Ukrainian forces closer towards the border. It has also begun to take territory in Ukraine's neighbouring Sumy region after Putin spoke of the possibility of carving out a buffer zone.

Alexander Khinshtein, the governor of Kursk who was appointed by President Vladimir Putin in December, said the raising of Russia's flag in Guyevo meant Russian forces were on course to regain control of the region "very soon".

Citing an unnamed source in the military, the state TASS news agency said that Russian forces only had to push Ukrainian troops out of two more settlements - Gornal and Oleshnya - in order to retake the entire region.

The Defence Ministry said its forces had defeated Ukrainian troops in fighting around the two settlements, but suggested they remained under Ukrainian control. Reuters could not verify the battlefield claims.

Ukraine's authoritative DeepState war map shows Ukraine in control of about 58 square kilometres (22 square miles) of Russian territory in Kursk, down from as much as 1,400 square kilometres claimed by Kyiv last year.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy confirmed for the first time on Monday that Ukrainian troops have also been active in Russia's adjacent Belgorod region.

He said the aim of Ukrainian activity in Russia's border areas was to protect Ukraine's Sumy and Kharkiv regions from Russian aggression and said that "the war must return to where it came from".

Russia's war in Ukraine has left hundreds of thousands of dead and injured, displaced millions of people, reduced towns to rubble and triggered the sharpest confrontation for decades between Moscow and the West.

Russian commander Apti Alaudinov was quoted by the state RIA news agency as saying on Friday that the situation in the Belgorod region was "under control" after the Ukrainian army tried to break through the border around two weeks ago.

(Reporting by Reuters;Writing by Andrew Osborn Editing by Alison Williams, Alexandra Hudson)