Zelenskiy says Ukrainian forces holding positions in Russia's Kursk region

(Reuters) -President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Saturday that Russian forces had tried to oust Ukrainian troops from positions in Russia's Kursk border region, but that Kyiv's forces were holding their lines.

"Regarding the Kursk operation, Russia tried to push back our positions, but we are holding the designated lines," Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.

Russia's defence ministry said on Friday that its forces had recaptured two villages in the border Kursk region, where Ukrainian troops launched a mass incursion in August.

Zelenskiy has acknowledged that the Ukrainian advance into Kursk was intended to draw Russian troops away from frontline positions in eastern Ukraine, where Russian forces have been making steady gains in recent months.

In his address, Zelenskiy said that in Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions, partly held by Russian forces, "there are very difficult conditions, with harsh enemy actions. But the resilience of our units is crucial. Everything depends on our resilience."

Russia's defence ministry on Friday announced the capture of Ostrivske, a village on a reservoir near the town of Kurakhove, a key Russian target in its advance through Donetsk region.

Ukraine has not acknowledged the loss of the village, but military bloggers have reported Russian advances in the area.

Prosecutors in Donetsk region on Saturday said two people were killed in Russian strikes on villages near Kurakhove.

The General Staff of Ukraine's military, in a late evening report, reported 47 clashes in the area around Kurakhove and 27 more in the Pokrovsk sector to the northwest.

Further to the northeast, in Toretsk, which both Ukrainian and Russian forces say has been partly occupied by Russian forces, the General Staff said Russian forces had launched 14 assaults, assisted by air strikes.

(Reporting by Ron Popeski and Oleksandr Kozhukhar; Editing by Sandra Maler and Matthew Lewis)