Russia claimed to retake a key town in the area from Ukrainian forces. Ukraine’s top military commander has said that its forces would continue to “hold the line.”

President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Russia had trapped the remaining Ukrainian soldiers in its western Kursk region, where they have clung on for more than seven months in one of the key battles of the war.

Russia's Security Council's Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev attends a meeting of the Council for Science and Education at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in the Moscow region's city of Dubna,