(Reuters) -Ukraine said on Tuesday its forces were "commencing new offensive actions" in Russia's western Kursk region, in its first substantive remarks two days after Russian reports of a renewed Ukrainian thrust in the area.
Ukraine first seized part of the Kursk region in a surprise incursion last August, and it has held territory there for five months despite losing some ground. The Russian defence ministry said on Sunday that Kyiv had launched a new counter-attack.
On Tuesday, Ukraine's general staff, which keeps a tight lid on information out of the area for the security of its operation there, said Kyiv's military had hit a Russian command post near the Kursk region's settlement of Belaya.
The strike and other recent operations in the region were coordinated with Ukrainian ground forces who "are currently commencing new offensive operations" against Russian troops, it said.
The military later edited out any mention of a new attack in the Telegram statement, replacing the phrase with the much vaguer "combat operations". It provided no explanation.
Russia's defence ministry, which has characterised the Ukrainian counter-attack as bungled over the last two days, said in a statement that its troops had carried out strikes on Ukrainian units in the Kursk region.
It listed six locations where it said its forces had defeated Ukrainian brigades, and seven more - including one on the Ukrainian side of the border - where it said it had carried out strikes on Ukrainian troops and equipment.
Reuters could not independently verify battlefield reports from either side.
The apparent escalation in the fighting in the Kursk region comes at a critical time for Ukraine, whose outnumbered and outgunned troops are struggling to repel Russian advances in the east.
Capturing and retaining a slice of Russian territory in the Kursk region has given Ukraine a bargaining chip in potential peace talks, as both sides fight to improve their battlefield positions before Donald Trump's return to the White House.
The U.S. president-elect, who will be sworn in on Jan. 20 - has repeatedly said he will end the nearly three-year-old war quickly, but without saying how.
The U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War said geolocated footage from the region published on Sunday and Monday indicated recent Ukrainian advances in three areas northeast of the town of Sudzha.
It said Russian forces were trying to attack elsewhere in the region. Russian military bloggers reported fighting in Malaya Loknya, northwest of Sudzha.
Ukraine's offensive in the Kursk region has come at a cost. Late in 2024 Russian forces advanced in eastern Ukraine at the fastest pace since 2022. Their troops control about a fifth of Ukraine's territory.
Western and Ukrainian assessments say Russia also has about 11,000 troops from its ally North Korea fighting with its own forces in the region. Russia has neither confirmed nor denied their presence.
Ukraine and the United States say large numbers have been killed, with U.S. Secretary Antony Blinken giving a figure on Monday of more than 1,000 North Koreans dead or wounded.
Ukraine's special forces said on Tuesday they had killed 13 North Korean soldiers, and posted photos on Telegram which they said showed their bodies and ID documents.
In a regular update, Kyiv's general staff said there had been 27 Russian attacks in the Kursk region on Tuesday so far.
(Reporting by Mark Trevelyan and Alexander Marrow in London and Anastasiia Malenko in Kyiv, Yuliia Dysa in Gdansk, Editing by Timothy Heritage and Hugh Lawson)
