"The boys are holding out"

Selensky confirms heavy fighting near Kursk

(Bild: AFP/Sergei CHUZAVKOV)

The Russian armed forces are putting the Ukrainian army under heavy pressure on several fronts. In addition, Russian troops have been attacking Ukrainian positions in the western Russian region of Kursk for almost five days.

"Active operations are now taking place along the entire length of the front line, but the fighting is particularly fierce in the Pokrovsk and Kurakhove directions," President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on X after a meeting of the high command in Kiev. "The guys are holding out and conducting counterattacks," he claimed.

The day before, Ukrainian military officials had indicated that the situation on the front lines near Kursk had become difficult. According to the Ukrainian commander-in-chief Olexander Syrskyj, Moscow has now withdrawn almost 50,000 soldiers from the front lines in southern Ukraine and deployed them to Kursk for counter-attacks. The Ukrainian army had advanced deep into Russian territory near Kursk in a surprise attack in the summer.

Meanwhile, the commander of the Russian "Akhmat" special forces unit, General Apty Alaudinov, spread reports of success. He claimed that almost half of the areas near Kursk captured from Ukraine had been brought back under Russian control.

"Today we can say that about half of the territory occupied by the enemy has been liberated," he was quoted as saying by the state news agency TASS. The current situation in the region could not be independently verified.