Russian troops have begun pushing back Ukrainian forces from the southwestern Kursk region in a counteroffensive, a senior-ranking military commander and pro-Russian war bloggers said late Tuesday, a move that, if confirmed, comes more than a month after Kyiv launched its surprise incursion.
Major General Apti Alaudinov, who serves as deputy chief of the Russian army’s military-political administration, said an elite Russian naval infantry unit “tore into” Ukrainian troops around the Korenevsky district, located on the border with northeastern Ukraine’s Sumy region.
“As far as I know, the fellas recaptured several settlements from the enemy,” Alaudinov, who also commands the Chechen Akhmat special forces, said in a video message published late Tuesday.
The pro-war Telegram channel Rybar, which has close ties to the military, said Russian forces recaptured the border towns of Gordeevka and Vnezapnoye as part of a “local counteroffensive” in the Korenevsky district.
Dva Mayora, another Telegram channel that provides running coverage of Russia's war against Ukraine, named four additional nearby towns where the 155th Guards Naval Infantry Brigade “successfully advanced.”
The Moscow Times could not immediately verify those battlefield reports.
However, the Ukrainian open-source intelligence website DeepStateMap.Live said late Tuesday that “the situation on the left flank of our grouping in the Kursk region has deteriorated.” It said Ukrainian forces recently lost control over the town of Korenevo and that the two warring sides clashed in the nearby village of Snagost.
Ukrainian forces stormed into the Kursk region on Aug. 6, capturing dozens of towns and villages and forcing some 130,000 people to fleet areas near the border.
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