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 launches a new offensive in Russia's Kursk region, raising questions about its strategic goals and potential impact on the war's trajectory and upcoming peace talks.

Russian military commentators say they are ‘worried’ about the multipronged Ukrainian attack in the border region of Kursk

Ukraine launched a fresh operation in Russia's southern Kursk region, Moscow said on Sunday, after Ukrainian officials and military bloggers reported new attacks from Kyiv in a region where Moscow is eager to reassert its grip.

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.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday that Russia had suffered heavy losses in five months of fighting Ukrainian forces in southern Russia's Kursk region, with nearly 15,000 killed.

Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine on 17 July 2014, as fighting raged between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces, the precursor of Russia's invasion in 2022.

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

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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.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin used their final meeting Thursday to press the incoming Trump administration not to give up on Kyiv’s fight, with Austin warning that to cease military support now “will only invite more aggression,