Russia has told residents in three regions neighbouring Ukraine not to use dating apps, to prevent Kyiv collecting intelligence.
The country’s ministry of internal affairs also claimed that Ukraine was remotely accessing CCTV cameras for reconnaissance purposes during the assault.
It came as Vladimir Putin flew to Chechnya on Tuesday and met its leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, on his first visit to the North Caucasus region since 2011.
Ukrainian forces have seized about 480 square miles of territory in Russia’s southern Kursk region, since launching the surprise incursion more than two weeks ago.
Kyiv’s top general said on Tuesday that Ukrainian forces had advanced as far as 22 miles, capturing 92 settlements.
A further 270 square miles could soon fall under the control of Kyiv after the destruction of a third and final bridge over the River Seym, cutting off the southern part of the region, Russian sources said.
More than 121,000 civilians have been evacuated from the frontier region since the offensive began on Aug 6.
“The use of online dating services is strongly discouraged. The enemy is actively using them to gather information,” Russia’s interior ministry warned its remaining residents.
Popular Western dating apps, such as Tinder and Bumble, left Russia in the wake of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February.
But this has not stopped tech-savvy Ukrainians from using other online services to draw operational secrets from unsuspecting Russian soldiers looking for love.
Ukraine has continued to make marginal gains throughout Kursk, according to the latest battlefield update from the Institute for the Study of War, a US think tank that tracks the conflict.
Unverified images shared on social media appeared to show the Russians preparing defences around the Kursk nuclear power plant, more than 60 miles north of the border with Ukraine.
Battlefield footage showed a Ukrainian fighter jet striking a Russian underground command centre in the region, using French-supplied AASM Hammer guided bombs.
Putin compared Kyiv’s ongoing invasion of Kursk to the Beslan siege, during a meeting with some of the parents who lost children in the 2004 school hostage crisis.
Some 330 people died in the siege, carried out by Chechen militants.
“Just as we fought the terrorists, today we have to fight those who are carrying out crimes in the Kursk region,” the Russian president said.
Kyiv had hoped the fighting in Kursk would result in Russia pulling its forces out of eastern Ukraine to quash the incursion.
But on Tuesday, Russia’s defence ministry claimed to have captured the Donetsk region town of Niu-York.
The ministry described it as “one of the largest settlements of the Toretsk agglomeration” and a “strategically important logistics hub”.
General Oleksandr Syrsky, Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, said he was “doing everything necessary” to protect Toretsk.
Soldiers, cited in a report by the Financial Times, said they had been forced to ration artillery shells for the first time since a US aid package because resources were being diverted to Kursk.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian parliament passed legislation banning religious organisations with links to Russia, an effective embargo on the Russian Orthodox Church.
Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, said the law would promote his country’s “spiritual independence”.
“The Russian Orthodox Church has nothing to do with faith — it is a tool of the special services,” Andriy Yermak, his chief of staff, added.
Patriarch Kirill, the head of the church, has been a cheerleader of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, which resulted in him being sanctioned by the UK Government.
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