Kyiv:

Ukraine now controls 74 settlements in Russia’s Kursk border region, the country’s president Volodymyr Zelensky said Tuesday.

The governor of the Kursk region, where Ukraine is mounting a week-long incursion, previously said Monday that Ukraine controls 28 settlements.

“There are 74 settlements under the control of Ukraine,” Zelensky said in his evening address.

The president said that “despite difficult, intense fighting, the advance of our forces in the Kursk region continues.”

He posted footage showing him holding a video call with military chief Oleksandr Syrsky.

Syrsky tells him: “As of today, our troops have advanced in some areas by 1 to 3 kilometres.”

In the last day, Ukraine has taken “over 40 square kilometres of territory”, Syrsky adds, after saying Monday that the troops hold around 1,000 square kilometres of Russian territory.

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