KYIV, Ukraine — Russia said Tuesday that its forces checked an effort by Ukrainian troops to expand a stunning weeklong incursion into the Kursk region, as a Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman said Kyiv has no intention of occupying Russian territory.

Russian army units, including fresh reserves, aircraft, drone teams and artillery forces, stopped Ukrainian armored mobile groups from moving deeper into Russia near the Kursk settlements of Obshchy Kolodez, Snagost, Kauchuk and Alexeyevsky, a Russian Defense Ministry statement said.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Heorhii Tykhyi said the cross-border operation was aimed at protecting Ukrainian land from long-range strikes launched from Kursk.

“Ukraine is not interested in taking the territory of the Kursk region, but we want to protect the lives of our people,” Tykhyi was quoted by local media as saying.

He said Russia had launched more than 2,000 strikes from the Kursk region in recent months using anti-aircraft missiles, artillery, mortars, drones, 255 glide bombs and more than 100 missiles.

The commander of the Ukrainian military, Oleksandr Syrskyi, said in a video posted Tuesday to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Telegram channel that Ukraine now controls 74 settlements in the Kursk region.

Ukrainian troops continued to advance, gaining control over 15 square miles of territory in the previous 24 hours, Syrskyi said. “Fights are ongoing along the entire front line. The situation, despite the high intensity of combat, is under control.”

Ukraine’s Western partners have said the country has the right to defend itself, including by attacking across the border.

Kremlin forces intensified their attacks in eastern Ukraine. Ukraine’s General Staff said Tuesday that over the previous 24 hours, Russian troops launched 52 assaults in the area of Pokrovsk, a town in Ukraine’s Donetsk region that is close to the front line. That’s roughly double the number of daily attacks there a week ago.

Ukraine’s undermanned army has struggled to hold back the bigger, better-equipped Russian forces in Donetsk.

The Ukrainian military claims that its charge onto Russian soil, which began Aug. 6, has already encompassed about 380 square miles of Russian territory. The goals of the swift advance have been a closely guarded military secret.

Analysts say Ukraine may have sought to ease pressure on its front line by attempting to draw the Kremlin’s forces into defending Kursk and other border areas. If so, the increased pressure around Pokrovsk suggests that Moscow did not take the bait.

Ukraine’s ambitious operation — the largest attack on Russia since World War II — has rattled the Kremlin. It compelled Russian President Vladimir Putin to convene a meeting Monday with his top defense officials.

Apparently, Ukraine assembled thousands of troops — some Western analysts estimate up to 12,000 — on the border in recent weeks without Russia noticing or acting.

About 121,000 people have been evacuated from Kursk or have fled the areas affected by fighting, Russian officials say. The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said it has seen geolocated footage indicating that Ukrainian forces advanced as much as 15 miles from the border.

The Russian Defense Ministry appeared to support that claim when it said Tuesday that it had also blocked an attack by the units of Ukraine’s 82nd Air Assault Brigade toward Maryinka, which is about that distance from Ukraine.

On Tuesday, Russian state television showed residents from evacuated areas lining up in buildings and on the street to receive food and water.