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.

Russia has claimed that its forces captured a battered but strategic town in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, a day after Kyiv launched a counterattack in the Russian region of Kursk.

Russia said on Sunday that Ukraine had launched a counter-attack in the Kursk region, an area of western Russia from which Russian troops have been trying to eject Ukrainian forces for the past five months.

Kyiv's army said on Tuesday there was still active fighting in Kurakhove, a strategic town in Ukraine's east that Russia said it had seized the previous day. Moscow hailed the capture of the "important logistics hub,