MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russian President Vladimir Putin telephoned his top commanders in Kursk to congratulate them on “victory” and the end of the operation to expel Ukrainian forces from the region in western Russia, Russian news agencies quoted the Kremlin as saying on Sunday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, writing about front-line operations on Sunday, said Ukrainian forces remained active in Kursk and in Russia’s neighbouring Belgorod region.
Russian forces for months have been pressing for the ejection of Ukrainian forces who staged a surprise cross-border incursion last August and seized swathes of territory.
“Putin congratulated them on the victory and thanked them for their heroic work,” the Russian agencies quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying.
Peskov said Putin spoke to the commander in overall charge of the Kursk operation and commanders of units which had “particularly distinguished” themselves.
The state RIA news agency earlier reported that a Russian military commander told Putin that “the scattered remnants” of the Ukrainian army remaining in Kursk region would soon be destroyed.
“At the moment we have recaptured the settlement of Gornal and are entrenched in its streets, which is completely under our control,” the commander was cited as saying, referring to a village just inside the Russian border.
The commander, quoted by RIA, said Russian troops were continuing to clear forest areas west and south of Gornal.
Putin on Saturday hailed what he said was the complete failure of an offensive by Ukrainian forces in Kursk after Russia said they had been expelled from the last village they had been holding.
Zelenskiy, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said Ukrainian forces remained active in both Kursk and Belgorod regions.
Quoting a report from top Ukrainian commander Oleksandr Syrskyi, Zelenskiy also said Russian forces had mounted nearly 70 attacks on Ukrainian positions on Sunday, with conditions remaining “difficult” in many areas.
Most of the battles, Zelenskiy said, were continuing in three sectors of the eastern front: Pokrovsk, a Russian target for months, as well as Kramatorsk and Lyman.
Russian forces began their full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and now control about 20% of Ukrainian territory.
Zelenskiy has said that the Kursk operation succeeded in drawing large numbers of Russian troops away from other sectors.
Ukraine’s president met with U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday in Rome to try to revive faltering efforts to end the war. Zelenskiy said the meeting could prove historic if it delivers the kind of peace he is hoping for, and a White House spokesperson called it “very productive.”
(Reporting by ReutersEditing by Andrew Osborn, Will Dunham and Ron Popeski)
