President Vladimir Putin said that Russia had trapped the remaining Ukrainian soldiers in its western Kursk region, where they have clung on for more than seven months in one of the key battles of the war, writes Reuters.

A day after instructing his top commanders to complete the ejection of Ukrainian forces as fast as possible, Putin told a news conference that the situation in Kursk was “completely under our control, and the group that invaded our territory is in isolation’.

Ukraine’s top commander denied this week that his men were being encircled, but said they were adopting better defensive positions. Its general staff said on Thursday that five Russian attacks had been repelled and clashes were continuing in four locations.

A Russian war correspondent reported heavy Ukrainian artillery fire on the town of Sudzha, which Russia recaptured on Wednesday. Maps published by Deep State, an authoritative Ukrainian source that charts the frontlines of the war, showed a dramatic shrinking of Ukrainian-held territory in the past week but little change in the past 24 hours. Putin said Ukrainian soldiers were cut off inside the invasion zone. “And if a physical blockade occurs in the coming days, then no one will be able to leave at all, there will be only 2 ways - to surrender or die”.