Ukraine has launched a military counterattack in the southern Russian Kursk region, a move officials said was designed to stop a Russian offensive.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he will urge allies to boost his country's air defenses at a meeting this week in Germany.

Russian forces continue to make costly but consistent gains in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine. They are steadily grinding down a pocket of resistance around the town of Kurakhove in the southern Donbas region and are also fighting to envelop the larger city of Pokrovsk to the north, Ukrainian soldiers and officials said.