MOSCOW, September 24. /TASS/. Twelve villages have been liberated by the Russian military during the operation in the Kursk Region, Major-General Apty Alaudinov, the deputy head of the Main Military and Political Department of the Russian Armed Forces, has said.

"The enemy has sustained heavy losses. It has no strength to advance. It keeps trying to somehow hold on to the areas already taken. Of what it originally seized it has already lost 12 villages," Alaudinov, the chief of the Akhmat commando force, said on the Rossiya-1 TV channel.

On September 13, the Russian Defense Ministry reported the liberation of 10 communities: Apanasovka, Byakhovo, Vishnevka, Viktorovka, Vnesazannoye, Gordeyevka, Krasnooktyabrskoye, Obukhovka, Snagost and Desyaty Oktyabr. Uspenovka and Borki were liberated later.