Russian forces on Sunday recaptured three more settlements in Russia's western Kursk region, the Defence Ministry said, part of an operation to evict Ukrainian troops holding chunks of territory seven months after a cross-border incursion.The statement followed reports by Russian bloggers that Russian special forces had crept for miles through a gas pipeline near the town of Sudzha in an attempt to surprise Ukrainian forces.The three settlements now under Russian control according to the ministry — Malaya Lokhnya, Cherkasskoye Porechnoye and Kositsa — all lie north of Sudzha."The Russian Federation's armed forces are continuing to rout groups of the Ukrainian army on the territory of Kursk region," the statement said.Ukrainian troops seized about 1,300 square km of Russia's Kursk region in August in what Kyiv said was an attempt to gain a bargaining chip in future negotiations and to force Russia to shift forces from eastern Ukraine.Russia has been pressing its drive to regain control of the region with some success in recent days. Open source maps on Friday showed Kyiv's contingent in Kursk nearly surrounded after rapid Russian advances.A pro-Russian military blogger said Russian special forces crept nearly 16 km along the inside of the 1.5 metre wide gas pipeline and spent several days in the pipe before surprising Ukrainian forces from the rear near Sudzha.A statement from Ukraine's airborne assault forces said that Russian soldiers had used the pipeline in an attempt to gain a foothold, but the Russians were promptly detected and attacked with rockets, artillery and drones.The Ukrainian military's General Staff in a late afternoon report said its forces repelled 15 Russian attacks in Kursk region, with six armed clashes still ongoing. It also reported 12 Russian air strikes on their positions.Russian advances in 2024 and US President Donald Trump's upending of US policy on Ukraine and Russia have raised fears among European leaders that Ukraine will lose the war and that Trump is turning his back on Europe.The US paused military aid and the sharing of intelligence with Ukraine this month after a meeting between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on February 28 descended into acrimony in front of the world's media.In an earlier update on the situation in Kursk, Russia's Defence Ministry said its forces had retaken the village of Lebedevka, as well as seizing Novenke, a hamlet across the border in Ukraine's neighbouring Sumy region.The Soviet-era Urengoy-Pomary-Uzhgorod pipeline used to bring gas from western Siberia via Sudzha to Ukraine but Ukraine terminated all Russian gas transit through its territory from January 1.In the eastern Donetsk region, where Russian forces have made slow but steady progress during gruelling fighting in what was once Ukraine's industrial heartland, Moscow said that its forces had taken the village of Kostyantynopil.In a part of Ukraine's southern Kherson region held by Russian forces, Russia-installed officials said Ukrainian forces launched a missile attack on a busy market in the town of Velyki Kopani. Russian news agencies quoted local health officials as saying the strike killed two people and injured seven.