Russian forces thwarted an attempt at another cross-border incursion by Ukraine into south-western Russia, a local official reported Sunday, months after Kyiv staged a bold assault on its nuclear-armed enemy that Moscow is still struggling to halt. An “armed group” sought on Sunday to breach the border between Ukraine and Russia’s Bryansk region, its governor, Aleksandr Bogomaz, said but was beaten back. Bogomaz did not clarify whether Ukrainian soldiers carried out the alleged attack, but claimed on Sunday evening that the situation was “stable and under control” by the Russian military. Bryansk neighbours Kursk province, where Ukraine seized about 1,000 sq km of territory during a surprise assault in August. Responsibility for previous incursions into Russia’s Belgorod and Bryansk regions has been claimed by two murky groups: the Russian Volunteer Corps and the Freedom of Russia Legion.

President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday that Russia’s defence ministry was working on different ways to respond if the US and its Nato allies help Ukraine to strike deep into Russia with long-range western missiles. Russia has been signalling to the US and its allies for weeks that if they give permission to Ukraine to strike deep into Russian territory with western-supplied missiles, then Moscow will consider it a major escalation. Putin said that it was too early to say exactly how Russia would react to such a move but that Moscow would have to respond accordingly and different options were being examined. “[The Russian defence ministry] is thinking about how to respond to the possible long-range strikes on Russian territory, it will offer a range of responses,” Putin told Russian state TV’s top Kremlin reporter, Pavel Zarubin.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday that cooperation within the “Ukraine plus Northern Europe” format is gaining speed with more steps that can increase pressure on Russia expected in the coming week. The five Nordic countries – Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Iceland – are all now Nato countries and have all been staunch supporters of Ukraine in its fight against Russia’s invasion. “They understand that it is necessary to create problems for the aggressor, so that Russia loses the opportunity to spoil the life of the world,” Zelenskyy said in his daily video address on Sunday.

Ukrainian drones targeted an ethanol plant in Russia’s Voronezh region, Russian news Telegram channels reported on Sunday. The attack sparked a fire at an unspecified industrial facility and injured one person, according to the region’s governor, Alexander Gusev.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Sunday sought to clarify comments he had made during a summit earlier in the week, insisting that he was not favouring Russia over Ukraine. “In declaring President Putin and the people of Russia as ‘valuable friends and allies’, President Ramaphosa was not projecting any particular country or block of countries as the enemy,” his office said in a statement. “It is through the policy of non-alignment that South Africa has been able to constructively engage with both Russia and Ukraine,” the statement said.

Two civilians were killed in Russian attacks on Sunday in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, which is split by the frontline and regularly hit by Russian artillery, drones and missiles, the regional governor said. An elderly man was killed after explosives were dropped on him from a drone and another man was killed by artillery fire, Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said on the Telegram messenger.

Russia said Sunday its military had advanced further in east Ukraine, capturing a frontline village just a few kilometres north of a key Ukrainian-held industrial hub. Moscow has made steady gains on the battlefield for months, pressing their advantage against overstretched and outmanned Ukrainian forces. Russian army units “liberated the settlement of Izmailovka,” the Russian defence ministry said in a daily briefing, using the Russian spelling for the village. Izmailivka had a population of just under 200 people before the conflict.