Zelenskiy says Ukrainian military has reduced Russian potential to attack on eastern front

(Reuters) - President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Thursday that Ukrainian forces had reduced the potential of Russian troops to launch attacks in Donetsk region on the eastern front of the more than 2 1/2-year-old war.

Zelenskiy, speaking in his nightly video address after conferring with commanders, said the military was doing its utmost "for the resilience of our battle brigades".

"At this time, the Ukrainian Defence Forces have managed to diminish the occupiers' assault potential in Donetsk region," he said.

The situation, he said, remained "critically difficult with tough battles every day" in the two sectors of the eastern front subjected to the most Russian attacks -- near the cities of Pokrovsk and Kurakhove.

Ukraine's operation in southern Russia's Kursk region, launched last month, succeeded in getting the Russian military to redirect resources away from the eastern front, Zelenskiy said.

And capturing Russian troops had bolstered Ukraine's "exchange fund" of prisoners of war to be used as a bargaining chip in facilitating exchanges with Moscow.

"In this theatre we managed to divert close to 40,000 Russian troops," he said. "Our active measures are proceeding."

The president also said that one person had died in a Russian attack on an elderly people's residence in Ukraine's northern Sumy region, an area subject to frequent Russian assaults.

(Reporting by Ron Popeski and Bogdan Kochubey; Editing by Mark Porter and Alistair Bell)