Russia has claimed that its forces captured a battered but strategic town in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, a day after Kyiv launched a counterattack in the Russian region of Kursk.

Russia has intensified attacks on the town of Sudzha in Kursk Oblast and its neighbouring villages. Source: Oleksii Dmytrashkivskyi, press officer of the temporary military commandant's office on the territory of the Russian Federation,

Russia said on Monday its forces had made important gains in eastern Ukraine while continuing to fend off a new Ukrainian offensive inside the Kursk region of western Russia, where a second day of fierce fighting was under way.

Ukraine has largely been driven out of Kurakhove, a battered but strategic town in the Donbas, Russia said. Kyiv’s forces were pressing a renewed offensive in southern Russia.

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.

Russian forces continue to make costly but consistent gains in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine. They are steadily grinding down a pocket of resistance around the town of Kurakhove and are also fighting to envelop the larger nearby city of Pokrovsk, Ukrainian soldiers and officials said.

Ukraine's fresh offensive in Kursk comes nearly six months after Kyiv first sent troops into the western Russian region.

Ukraine said Tuesday its forces struck a Russian military "command post" in Russia's Kursk region during "combat operations", while backtracking on a claim it had launched a fresh offensive in the border area.

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On the last day, 161 combat engagements were registered in the frontline. Most of the fighting took place near Pokrovsk and in the Kursk region, according to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Ukraine launched a new offensive in Russia's Kursk region Sunday, Moscow and Kyiv said. Ukrainian forces had captured about 500 square miles of the western Russian province in a surprise incursion in August, but Russian and North Korean troops are believed to have retaken 40-50% of that area.