Ukraine has launched a military counterattack in the southern Russian Kursk region, a move officials said was designed to stop a Russian offensive.

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 in the southern Donbas region and are also fighting to envelop the larger city of Pokrovsk to the north, Ukrainian soldiers and officials said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he will urge allies to boost his country's air defenses at a meeting this week in Germany.

Ukraine first launched its incursion into Russia's Kursk region in August last year, seizing a large chunk of territory. In recent months, Russian forces have made big gains in th

Russian shelling, meanwhile, killed at least one person and wounded another in Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk region, local officials said.

The assault comes at a critical juncture in the nearly three-year conflict, with both sides seeking to strengthen their negotiating hand ahead of US president-elect Donald Trump's return to the White House on January 20.

Ukraine appeared to launch a fresh offensive Sunday in Russia’s border region of Kursk, where Kyiv’s forces have held territory for several months.