[Source: Reuters]

Russian forces have begun a significant counter-offensive against Ukrainian troops who smashed their way into western Russia last month, and have taken some territory back, pro-Russianwar bloggers and a senior Russian commander say.

Ukraine on August 6 launched the biggest foreign attack on Russia since World War II, bursting through the border into the region of Kursk with thousands of troops supported by swarms of drones and heavy weaponry, including foreign-made arms.

Major General Apti Alaudinov, who commands Chechnya’s Akhmat special forces fighting in Kursk, said that Russian troops had gone on the offensive and taken back control of about 10 settlements in Kursk, TASS reported.

“The situation is good for us,” said Alaudinov, who is also deputy head of the Russian defence ministry’s military-political department.

“A total of about 10 settlements in the Kursk region have been liberated,” he said.

Reuters was unable to verify the battlefield reports due to reporting restrictions on both sides of the war.

Russia’s defence ministry said it had defeated Ukrainian units at a number of villages in Kursk.

There was no immediate comment from Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said last week that his forces controlled 100 settlements in Kursk region over an area of more than 1300 sq km, a figure disputed by Russian sources.

Yuri Podolyaka, an Ukrainian-born pro-Russian military blogger, and two other influential bloggers – Rybar and the Two Majors – said that Russian forces had begun a significant counter-offensive in Kursk.

“In the Kursk region, the Russian army launched counter-offensive actions on the western flank of the enemy’s wedge, reducing the Ukrainian zone of control near the state border,” the Two Majors blog said.

Podolyaka said that Russian forces had taken several villages on the west of the sliver of Russia that Ukraine carved out, pushing Ukrainian forces to the east of the Malaya Loknya River south of Snagost.

Russian forces also advanced in eastern Ukraine, and were fighting in the centre of the town of Ukrainsk in the Donetsk region, according to Russian war bloggers and open source maps of the war.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and UK foreign minister David Lammy met top officials in Kyiv on Wednesday.

With Ukraine at a critical juncture in its struggle against Russia, Blinken has said he wants to hear directly from Zelenskiy and others what Ukraine’s goals in the war are and what the US can do to help it achieve them.

Zelenskiy has been pleading with allies for months to allow Ukraine to fire foreign missiles including long-range US ATACMS and UK Storm Shadows deep into Russian territory to limit the Kremlin’s ability to launch attacks.

An air raid alert sounded in the Ukrainian capital early on Wednesday evening with the senior officials expected to give a news conference later.

A wreath-laying ceremony they were due to attend was cancelled.