Russia says its forces retake two settlements in Kursk region

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian forces have recaptured two settlements in the country's western Kursk region where Ukrainian troops broke across the border and seized a chunk of territory last August, the Russian Defence Ministry said on Wednesday.

But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy praised his troops for "good results" in Kursk and lauded frontline units in Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine for launching counterattacks against Russian forces.

Reuters could not independently confirm battlefield accounts by either side in the three-year-old conflict.

The Russian Defence Ministry said its forces had retaken the villages of Pogrebki and Orlovka, north of the town of Sudzha, close to the Russia-Ukraine border.

The ministry statement also said Russian forces had struck Ukrainian units and positions near more than a dozen settlements, including several around Sudzha.

Official Russian reports have for weeks been relating how Moscow's troops have been recovering territory seized in last August's Ukrainian incursion into the region.

Zelenskiy, in his nightly video address, noted it was nearly seven months that Ukrainian forces "have been holding the buffer zone on the aggressor's territory in Russia. They have almost become used to it."

The president also offered praise to units in Donetsk region "who are repelling assaults and counterattacking."

Russia's military for months has been reporting a slow but steady advance westward across Donetsk region, capturing village after village.

The troops have been closing in for several seeks on the key logistics centre of Pokrovsk, where Ukraine's sole colliery producing coking coal for steelmaking has been closed down as Russian forces approach.

After failing in their initial attempt to advance on the capital Kyiv in the weeks following the February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Moscow's troops have focused on capturing Donbas -- made up of Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

Russia proclaimed the annexation of four regions in 2022 -- Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, though it does not have full control of any of them. In 2014, it annexed the Crimea peninsula after a popular revolt in Kyiv prompted a Russia-friendly president to flee the country.

(Reporting by Reuters. Writing by Gleb Stolyarov and Ron Popeski. Editing by Mark Trevelyan and Deepa Babington)