Russia’s Defense Ministry said today it has recaptured a village in the Kursk region that Ukrainian troops overran in their offensive into Russia last summer.

The ministry said in a statement that the soldiers “liberated” Nikolayevo-Darino, a small village on the border with Ukraine.

Ukraine had launched a surprise attack in early August and claimed to have brought under its control several hundred square kilometers in the Kursk region.

This position could be used as a bargaining chip in potential peace negotiations, while the Ukrainian military faces difficulties on its own soil.

Russia launched a counterattack in the Kursk region and mobilized there, according to Seoul, Kiev and Washington, thousands of North Korean soldiers.

The Russian military said it had recaptured villages there, but this partial Ukrainian occupation continues to embarrass the Kremlin.

Since the beginning of the attack on Ukraine in February 2022, the Russian authorities want to show that it does not disrupt the daily life of Russians, despite the airstrikes or the galloping inflation.

Vladimir Putin admitted in December that he does not know when his troops will succeed in driving Ukrainian soldiers out of the Kursk region.

The fate of Russian citizens in Ukrainian-held territory has recently sparked criticism of the authorities, which, while moderate, is very rare in Russia.

Some of their relatives have mobilized in recent weeks to demand their return, posting messages on social media. One of them, Lyubov Prilutskaya, spoke to AFP about her “huge anger” at her country’s authorities, whom she accuses of inaction. She stated that she had not heard from her elderly parents since August.

A few dozen worried relatives and residents who had already left the area had organized a demonstration in mid-January in front of the Kursk region governor’s office.

The spokesman for the command of Ukrainian forces in the region, Oleksii Dmitrakivskyi, told AFP that 2,000 civilians were still in the occupied territory, stressing that the fighting made it difficult to record them.

An official from Russia’s Kursk region told AFP last week that authorities were constantly working to return them.