President Vladimir Putin has visited the border region of Kursk for the first time since Russian forces ejected Ukrainian troops from the area last month, the Kremlin said.
Ukrainian forces made an incursion into the Kursk region in August 2024 in one of their boldest battlefield successes in the more than three-year war. It the first time Russian territory was occupied by an invader since World War II.
Since the end of 2023, Russia has mostly had the advantage on the battlefield, with the exception of Kursk.
At the height of the incursion, Ukrainian forces claimed nearly 1,400 square kilometres (540 square miles) of Kursk.
Russia said in late April that it had ejected Ukrainian troops from the region.
During Tuesday’s “working visit”, Putin met volunteer organisations in Kursk and inspected a nuclear power plant in the region, the Kremlin said on Wednesday.
Russian state television showed Putin meeting volunteers and local officials in the region, including acting governor Alexander Khinshtein.
Putin was accompanied by Sergei Kiriyenko, the Kremlin first deputy chief of staff.
In Ukraine, at least six servicemen were killed and 10 others wounded in a missile attack on Tuesday, Ukraine’s national guard said on Wednesday.
“An internal investigation into the incident is underway. The commander of the military unit has been suspended, and the necessary information has been passed on to law enforcement agencies,” Ukraine’s national guard said in a statement.
Ukraine’s Sumy border region has come under intensifying attacks in recent months. Russia’s defence ministry had on Tuesday evening said it had launched a ballistic missile attack on the Ukrainian site.
“During reconnaissance activities … a training camp” for Ukrainian special forces was “detected,” it said in a social media post.
“Based on the received coordinates, an Iskander missile strike was launched.”
Russia also published footage showing the hit on what it said was a training camp in a wooded area.
Aerial footage showed one strike, sparking a large fire and sending a plume of thick black smoke billowing into the air.
Meanwhile, Russia said it intercepted 159 drones launched by Ukraine over 12 hours targeting several Russian regions, including Moscow, the military said in a statement on Wednesday.
The drones mostly targeted Russian regions bordering Ukraine and were launched on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, said a defence ministry statement.
On Wednesday, the Ukrainian military said it had struck a semiconductor device plant in a drone attack on Russia’s Oryol region.
The plant supplies various enterprises including some involved in the production of Iskander and Kinzhal missiles, the military said on Telegram, adding that 10 drones had reached the target area and that a fire had broken out.
The barrage came two days after a phone call between Putin and US President Donald Trump failed to clinch a breakthrough towards a ceasefire in the three-year conflict.
European diplomats have been pressing Moscow to agree to a truce.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accused the Kremlin of stalling in order to continue its offensive.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Tuesday he expected Russia to present a Ukraine ceasefire outline within days that will show if it was serious.
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