At the height of their offensive, Ukrainian forces controlled some 500 square miles of Russian soil. Now they hold just a narrow strip of land along the border.

When Mariia Pankova last exchanged messages with her close friend Pavlo in December, she had no idea that he was among the Ukrainian troops fighting in Russia's Kursk region. She found out when a fellow soldier told her several days later that her friend,

Ukrainian forces have pulled almost entirely out of the Kursk region of Russia, ending an offensive that had stunned the Kremlin over the summer with its speed and audacity.