Ukraine said Tuesday its forces struck a Russian military "command post" in Russia's Kursk region during "combat operations," while backtracking on a claim it had launched a fresh offensive in the border area.

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.

Ukraine has largely been driven out of Kurakhove, a battered but strategic town in the Donbas, Russia said. Kyiv’s forces were pressing a renewed offensive in southern Russia.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday that Russia had suffered heavy losses in five months of fighting Ukrainian forces in southern Russia's Kursk region, with nearly 15,000 killed.

Russian forces continue to make costly but consistent gains in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine. They are steadily grinding down a pocket of resistance around the town of Kurakhove and are also fighting to envelop the larger nearby city of Pokrovsk, Ukrainian soldiers and officials said.

Ukrainian forces have launched a major new offensive in Russia’s Kursk region, a region that Ukraine captured parts of over the summer but has in the past few months struggled to hold amid

Russia’s Defense Ministry is claiming that its troops in eastern Ukraine have captured the town of Kurakhove after a monthslong battle

"Such fire damage is an integral part of combat operations of Ukraine's Defense Forces units, which are engaged in combat operations on the territory of the Russian Federation," the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces said.