RUSSIAN forces have checked an effort by Ukrainian troops to expand a week-long cross-border incursion, the Defence Ministry said today, as Kiev said that it has no intention of occupying Russian territory.

According to a Russian Defence Ministry statement, army units, fresh reserves, military aircraft, drone teams and artillery forces have stopped Ukrainian armoured mobile groups from moving deeper into Russia, near the Kursk settlements of Obshchy Kolodez, Snagost, Kauchuk and Alexeyevsky.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Heorhii Tykhyi said the operation was aimed at protecting Ukrainian land from long-range strikes launched from Kursk.

“Ukraine is not interested in taking the territory of the Kursk region, but we want to protect the lives of our people,” local media reported Mr Tykhyi as saying.

He added that Russia had launched more than 2,000 strikes from the Kursk region in recent months, using anti-aircraft missiles, barrel artillery, mortars, drones, 255 glide bombs and more than 100 missiles.

He said: “The purpose of this operation is to preserve the lives of our children, to protect the territory of Ukraine from Russian strikes.”

Ukraine’s Western allies have said that the country has the right to defend itself, including through cross-border operations.

The Kremlin’s forces are intensifying their attacks in eastern Ukraine, with Kiev’s General Staff saying today that, over the previous 24 hours, Russian troops had launched 52 assaults in the area of Pokrovsk, a town in Ukraine’s Donetsk region that is close to the front line.

That’s roughly double the number of daily attacks there a week ago.

Ukraine’s outnumbered army has been struggling to hold back the bigger and better-equipped Russian forces in Donetsk.

Since launching the incursion on August 6, Ukrainian forces have seized about 386 square miles of Russian territory, Kiev’s military claims.

About 121,000 people have been evacuated from Kursk or have fled the areas affected by fighting on their own, Russian officials say.

The Russian Defence Ministry said today that its forces had blocked an attack by the units of Ukraine’s 82nd Air Assault Brigade towards Maryinka, which is about 15 miles from the border.

The goals of the swift advance into the Kursk region have been a closely guarded military secret.

Analysts suggest that a catalyst may have been Ukraine’s desire to ease pressure on its front line by attempting to draw the Kremlin’s forces into defending Kursk and other border areas. If so, the increased pressure around Pokrovsk suggests that Moscow hasn’t taken the bait.