Kursk, in square kilometres
Published 6 October 2026
Reports that Ukrainian forces had crossed into Russia's Kursk region began on Tuesday, 6 August 2024. Reuters' initial account relied heavily on Russian authorities describing infantry and armour crossing the border and efforts to repel them. That structure matters: an opening report can establish a major event while leaving its scale, purpose and outcome unresolved.
The early Kursk figures did not form a single agreed map. On Monday, 12 August 2024, Ukrainian commander Oleksandr Syrskyi said his forces controlled about 1,000 square kilometres of Russian territory. Earlier that day, Kursk's acting governor Alexei Smirnov had described Ukrainian control of 28 settlements in an incursion about 12 kilometres deep and 40 kilometres wide. Reuters explicitly noted the gap between those accounts. The claims were delivered by opposing officials as the operation was still developing, six days after the incursion began on Tuesday, 6 August. They are evidence of what each government acknowledged or asserted at that stage, not interchangeable measurements taken by a common survey team. (Reuters, Ukraine touts huge gains in Kursk region as it takes war back to Russia, 12 August 2024)
By Friday, 16 August 2024, Kyiv claimed 82 settlements over 1,150 square kilometres. Syrskyi said Ukrainian troops were advancing between one and three kilometres in some areas, and reported fighting near Malaya Loknya, about 11.5 kilometres from the border. Zelenskiy described the operation as replenishing Ukraine's "exchange fund", meaning Russian prisoners who could be used in swaps; Ukrainian officials said at least hundreds had been captured. Russia's defence ministry said it had repelled attacks around several villages. These are concurrent claims with different purposes: territorial control, local movement, prisoner leverage and defensive success. (Reuters, Ukraine says it keeps advancing, 'strengthening positions' in Kursk region, 16 August 2024)
On Monday, 19 August 2024, Zelenskiy raised Ukraine's claim to more than 1,250 square kilometres and 92 settlements. Russian authorities said a third bridge over the Seym had been struck, while Ukraine's air-force chief had said his forces destroyed two bridges to weaken Russian logistics. Reuters said it could not independently confirm the bridge damage or the battlefield situation. Russia's emergencies ministry reported that more than 121,000 people had been evacuated from nine border districts. That number is a Russian ministry's cumulative evacuation claim at that date, not a count of refugees from Ukraine or an IOM estimate of people displaced inside Ukraine. Keeping the categories separate allows the civilian effects on the Russian side of the border to be reported without contaminating Ukraine's displacement totals. (Reuters, Kyiv: our Kursk attack shows Kremlin red lines are bluff, 19 August 2024)
Zelenskiy presented Kursk as an argument about Western restrictions as well as Russian territory. On 19 August he said that if partners lifted restrictions on using supplied weapons inside Russia, Ukraine would not need to enter Kursk physically. He connected that demand to the protection of Ukrainian border communities and to the difficulty of resisting Russian advances around Pokrovsk and Toretsk. Reuters reported Russian forces moving as close as 10 kilometres from Pokrovsk's outskirts. In the separate same-day report, Ukraine's military said it had fought 63 skirmishes on the Pokrovsk front. These dated accounts do not prove Kursk had relieved pressure in Donetsk; they show Ukraine advancing in Russia while still reporting intense fighting at a threatened logistics hub in its own east. Reuters, Zelenskiy remarks, 19 August 2024; Reuters, 19 August 2024 battlefield report.
On Saturday, 26 April 2025, Putin and Russian chief of staff Valery Gerasimov said the last Ukrainian troops had been driven from Kursk. Kyiv denied the claim and said its forces remained active in Kursk and neighbouring Belgorod. Russia also acknowledged for the first time that North Korean troops had fought alongside its forces. Reuters reported that Russian troops, later reinforced by the North Koreans, had been trying to reverse the Ukrainian incursion since the previous August. The territorial end point remained disputed in this report, even as the participation of North Korean troops was acknowledged by Moscow. (Reuters, Russia says last Ukrainian troops expelled from Kursk region, Kyiv denies assertion, 26 April 2025)
On Monday, 28 April 2025, North Korea itself confirmed the deployment, saying it had sent troops under Kim Jong Un's orders and helped recover Russian territory held by Ukraine. Reuters cited the Korean Central News Agency's account of North Korea's ruling-party military commission. Pyongyang's admission and Moscow's weekend acknowledgement establish the participating governments' public acceptance of the deployment, rather than leaving it solely as an accusation by their opponents. They do not, by themselves, establish a verified troop total, casualty total or the precise remaining line of control. Reuters again noted Ukraine's denial that all its forces had been expelled. (Reuters, North Korea confirms troop deployment to Russia as Putin hails 'heroes', 28 April 2025)
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