Russia said on Sunday that Ukraine had launched a new attack in the Kursk region, an area of western Russia from where Russian troops have been trying to expel Ukrainian forces for the past five months.
Ukrainian troops crossed the border in a surprise raid on August 6 and managed to hold onto a chunk of territory there that could provide kyiv with an important bargaining chip in potential peace talks.
Russia's Defense Ministry said its forces were pushing back Ukrainian forces, but some reports from Russian military bloggers suggested the Russian side had been under heavy pressure.
Andriy Yermak, head of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's office, posted on Telegram that there was “good news” from Kursk, adding: “Russia is getting what it deserves.”
Andriy Kovalenko, director of Ukraine's Official Counter-Disinformation Center, wrote on Telegram that Russian troops were attacked in several locations.
The Russian statement said Ukraine attacked around 0600 GMT near the village of Berdin with two tanks, a mine clearance vehicle and 12 armored fighting vehicles with paratroopers.
“Artillery and aviation of the Northern (Russian) group of forces defeated the assault group of the Armed Forces of Ukraine,” he added.
The statement said that two Ukrainian attacks had been repelled. Reuters could not independently verify the situation on the ground.
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Reports from the most widely read Russian war bloggers, who support Moscow's war in Ukraine but have often reported critically on failures and setbacks, indicated that the Ukrainian assault had put Russian forces, at least temporarily, on the defensive. .
“Despite heavy pressure from the enemy, our units heroically hold the line,” the Operativnye Svodki (Operational Reports) channel said in the first hours after the attack.
In a later update, another influential blogger, Yuri Podolyak, said Russian units had taken control of the situation after initial “mistakes” and surrounded Ukrainian forces north of a highway leading to the regional capital, Kursk.
Kursk's acting governor, Alexander Khinshtein, told people to trust only official sources and warned displaced residents not to return to unsafe areas without permission.
Ukrainian and Western assessments say some 11,000 troops from Russia's ally North Korea have been deployed to the Kursk region to support Moscow's forces. Russia has neither confirmed nor denied its presence.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Saturday: “In the battles yesterday and today near a single village, Makhnovka, in the Kursk region, the Russian army lost to a battalion of North Korean infantrymen and Russian paratroopers.”
He did not provide specific details. A battalion can vary in size, but generally consists of several hundred soldiers.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said in response to a question on his annual marathon conference call last month that Russia would definitely expel Ukrainian forces from Kursk, but declined to set a date for when this would happen.
Russia currently controls about a fifth of Ukraine, but Ukraine's unexpected success in seizing and retaining a chunk of Russian territory could boost its negotiating position as both sides prepare for possible peace talks this year.
Both have worked to improve their battlefield positions before US President-elect Donald Trump is sworn in on January 20. Trump has repeatedly said he will quickly end the war, but without saying how.
However, by committing some of its most effective units to the Kursk offensive, Ukraine has weakened the defense of its own eastern regions, where Russian forces have advanced since August at their fastest pace since 2022.