Kyiv | Ukrainian forces have gone on the offensive in the Kursk region of Russia, Ukrainian and Russian officials said on Sunday (Monday AEDT), in what appeared to be an effort to regain the initiative there as they struggle to thwart relentless Russian assaults across eastern Ukraine.

Ukraine took about 1300 square kilometres last summer in the Kursk region in a surprise incursion, but Russia clawed back about half of the territory in the months that followed.