The daring campaign Ukraine launched last summer to seize and occupy Russian territory appears to be nearing an end.

Russia battled on Sunday to drive the last Ukrainian soldiers from western Russia, Russian officials said, after a seven-month incursion by Ukraine that aimed to distract Moscow's forces, gain a bargaining chip and rile President Vladimir Putin.

At the height of the campaign, Ukrainian forces controlled some 500 square miles of Russian territory. Now they hold just a small sliver of land along the border.

Kyiv troops withdraw from Kursk town as Moscow closes in on recapturing region - Ukraine is rapidly losing ground in the Kursk region amid a major Russian offensive to recapture land

Russia's Security Council's Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev attends a meeting of the Council for Science and Education at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in the Moscow region's city of Dubna,

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine gave no indication Friday that his country’s soldiers would withdraw from Kursk, let alone surrender.

A Russian service member places a flag oh the roof of a house in a part of the Kursk region, which was recently retaken by Russia's armed forces in the course of Russia-Ukraine conflict, Russia, in this image released.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has called on Ukrainian troops in the Russian region of Kursk to surrender, as diplomatic back-and-forth continues over a potential US-brokered ceasefire with Ukraine.

President Trump and President Vladimir V. Putin both claimed that Ukrainian forces were surrounded. Ukraine’s top military commander vowed to “hold the line.”