Top Russian official reports swift advance in Ukraine, rules out talks for now

MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russia said on Tuesday its forces had advanced by 1,000 square kilometres (390 square miles) in eastern Ukraine in August and September despite a Ukrainian incursion into western Russia, which ruled out any ceasefire talks with Kyiv.

Since Russia sent armoured forces into Ukraine in February 2022, the war has largely been a story of grinding artillery and drone strikes along a heavily fortified 1,000-km (620-mile) front involving hundreds of thousands of soldiers.

Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu said that the Aug. 6 Ukrainian incursion into Russia's Kursk region had aimed to improve Kyiv's negotiating position and divert Russian forces from the Donbas front in eastern Ukraine.

But Shoigu said that Russian forces were increasing the pace of their offensive in Donbas, capturing almost 1,000 sq km over August and the first eight days of September.

Open source data and battlefield reports indicate that Russian forces in Donbas advanced in August at their fastest rate in about two years, though Ukraine also seized a chunk of the Kursk region.

Shoigu, who sits at the heart of Kremlin policy-making on the Security Council, said on state TV that as long as Ukrainian forces were on sovereign Russian soil there would be no talks with Kyiv, and this was the stance of President Vladimir Putin.

Russian forces, which have taken about a fifth of Ukraine since invading in February 2022, are advancing in eastern Ukraine in an attempt to take the whole of the Donbas, which is about half the size of the U.S. state of Ohio.

Russia said on Sunday that its forces had taken full control of a town in eastern Ukraine as Moscow's forces advance on the strategically important city of Pokrovsk and seek to pierce the Ukrainian defensive front lines.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said the Kursk operation was also to prevent Russian forces from crossing the border in the opposite direction.

Putin ordered tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022 in what he calls a "special military operation" against security threats by Western-backed Kyiv. Ukraine has denied such accusations and vowed to expel all Russian forces.

Russian news agencies quoted the defence ministry as saying Moscow's forces had taken four more villages in eastern Ukraine. Reuters could not independently verify the battlefield reports from either side.

On Monday Russia said its forces had captured the village of Memryk, roughly 15 miles (24 km) southeast of Pokrovsk. Zelenskiy said Kyiv's forces were holding their own in the east.

Ukraine also struck the Moscow region on Tuesday in its biggest drone attack so far on the Russian capital.

(Reporting by Reuters; writing by Guy Faulconbridge; editing by Mark Trevelyan and Mark Heinrich)