MOSCOW - Russia has taken two villages in the western Kursk region, a senior commander said, as Russian forces advance against thousands of Ukrainian forces who smashed through the Russian border last month.

Ukraine on Aug. 6 launched the biggest foreign attack on Russia since World War Two, bursting through the border into the western Kursk region supported by swarms of drones and heavy weaponry, including Western-made arms.

Major General Apti Alaudinov, commander of Chechnya's Akhmat special forces and deputy head of the Russian defence ministry's military-political department, said that Russia had taken Nikolayevo-Darino and Darino.

The villages are about 15 km (9 miles) from the former front lines that were established by Ukrainian forces in August - and give Russian forces a position from which to attack Sverdlikovo which Ukrainian forces have been using as a logistical centre.

"Our entire front has moved forward," Alaudinov said, adding that Russian forces were also advancing in eastern Ukraine.

Russia, which sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in 2022, began a major counteroffensive against the Ukrainian forces earlier this month from the west of the sliver of land they captured.

Ukraine has been trying to smash through the Russian border in an another place to the east of Russia's advancing forces in a bid to divert forces from the main offensive there, according to the Russian defence ministry.

Russia, which controls about 18% of Ukraine, has also been advancing in eastern Ukraine - and took the town of Ukrainsk on Tuesday.

  - Reuters