Ukraine said on Monday it had asked the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to join humanitarian efforts in Russia's Kursk region following a cross-border incursion by Ukrainian forces.

Moscow’s troops have retaken a few villages in a border area that Kyiv’s forces invaded last month and are also advancing steadily in eastern Ukraine.

Russia's counter-offensive to retake Ukrainian-held territory in the Kursk region has been "stopped", a spokesman from Ukraine's military administration there told AFP Wednesday, after Moscow said it was beginning to repel the surprise incursion.