Russia has pulled troops back from Ukraine to help defend the escalating invasion of its own land, according to Ukrainian officials.

On Monday, Vladimir Putin ordered his military to “drive out” the Ukrainian forces that have seized a swath of the southern border regions of Kursk and Belgorod.

He appointed Alexei Dyumin, his former bodyguard, as the commander in charge of the operation on Tuesday. Mr Dyumin gained favour by once protecting Putin from a bear and is seen as a potential successor to him in the Kremlin.

“Russia has relocated some of its units from both Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions of Ukraine’s south,” Dmytro Lykhoviy, a Ukrainian army spokesman, told Politico.

Forcing Moscow on to the defensive had been seen as one aim of the cross-border raid that entered its eighth day on Tuesday.

Ukraine’s advance has not relieved pressure on the eastern city of Pokrovsk, where Russia has been mounting an offensive, according to the general staff of the Ukrainian army.

However, Moscow was unable to send further reinforcements to the battlefront in the Donetsk region, a spokesman for Ukraine’s foreign ministry said.

Oleksander Syrsky, Kyiv’s top general, said on Monday that his forces were in control of 1,000 sq km (386 sq miles) of Russian land. The Telegraph was not able to verify that figure and independent analysts put the total lower.