Ukrainian offensive towards Russia suffers strokes, Kiev's troops lose the largest town of Kursk, Sudzhan

The recapture of the largest city that Ukraine had occupied in Russia's Kursk region is another advantage in Russia's offensive to remove Ukrainian forces from their territory.

Reports suggest that Sudzha was one of the most difficult battles in the more than three -year war.

Sudzha had a population of about 5,000 people reported before the offensive, but is now reported to have been heavily damaged.

Ukrainian senior military commander Oleksandr Syskyi said on Thursday that Russian aircraft had carried out so many attacks on Kursk that the city was almost completely destroyed.

In recent weeks, Russian troops have recovered much of the area that Ukraine occupied after the surprise cross -border attack in the Kursk region in August last year.

The Kursk region has begun to plan the reconstruction and development of areas recaptured by Ukrainian control, Alexander Khintein, the relevant governor of the region, said Saturday.

According to Khinstein, the most urgent tasks are the complete cleansing of land mines and the restoration of the population to the levels before the Ukrainian forces entered the region.

Also on Saturday, the Russian Ministry of Defense said its engineering units have already begun mines removal operations in the Recovered Border areas of the Kursk region.

Efforts are aimed at restoring essential infrastructure and allowing the resumption of economic activities after intensive fighting, the ministry said in a statement.

Meanwhile, the northern city of Ukraine, Chernihiv, was hit by numerous Russian drones in the night attacks, according to the head of the Chernihiv military administration, Dmyro Bryzhynskyi.

Russian drones hit high residential buildings causing a fire that was extinguished by rescue teams. Bryzhynsky also reported that a drone hit a five -story building and damaged private homes.

Also in the Chernihiv region, a Russian ballistic missile reportedly crashed outside the Semenivka border town, near Russia, causing a partial power outage according to Ukrainian authorities.