Moscow claims progress in Kursk amid Kyiv's 'propaganda' accusations

Russia's Defence Ministry said on Tuesday that it has retaken control of Snagost, a village in its western Kursk region on the border with Ukraine.

Footage released by the Ministry purportedly showed fights for the Russian settlement, which had been captured by the Ukrainian army during the incursion of Kursk, launched on 6 August.

In his nightly address on Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke about the situation on the ground in Kursk, which he said did not match what the Kremlin was claiming.

"We are working to ensure that reality ultimately overcomes Russian state propaganda," he said.

"Over a hundred battles have taken place since the start of this day, with the most intense fighting in the Kurakhove and Pokrovsk directions," Zelenskyy explained.

"We are defending our positions. We also reviewed the Kursk operation in detail, and each day we are acting precisely as planned."

Over the weekend, Ukraine made a new appeal to the West to allow it to use its delivered weapons to strike deeper into Russia. A meeting between US and UK leaders earlier last week produced no visible shift in their policy on the use of long-range weapons.

Discussions on allowing long-range strikes were believed to be on the table when US President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer met in Washington on Friday, but no decision was announced immediately.

Zelenskyy has been pressing the US and other allies to allow his forces to use Western weapons to target air bases and launch sites farther afield as Russia has stepped up assaults on Ukraine’s electricity grid and utilities before winter.

Russia to increase its troops by 180,000

On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the country’s military to increase its number of troops by 180,000 to a total of 1.5 million.

Putin’s decree, published on the official government website, will take effect on 1 December. It sets the overall number of Russian military personnel at nearly 2.4 million, including 1.5 million troops, and orders the government to provide the necessary funding.

After calling up 300,000 reservists in the face of Ukraine’s counteroffensive in the fall of 2022, Russian authorities have switched to filling the ranks of troops fighting in Ukraine with volunteer soldiers, who have been attracted by relatively high wages.

Many commentators have noted that the Kremlin has been reluctant to call more reservists, fearing domestic destabilisation like what happened in 2022 when hundreds of thousands fled Russia to avoid being sent to combat.

The shortage of military personnel has been widely cited as a key reason behind the success of Ukraine's incursion into Russia's Kursk region.

The Kremlin has sought to avoid the redeployment of troops from eastern Ukraine and relied on reinforcements from other areas to stem the Ukrainian incursion.