Russia has intensified its attacks on Ukrainian forces battling to hold an enclave in Russia’s Kursk region. Russia also increased pressure in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, Ukraine’s top army commander said.
The Ukrainian military said in its daily report that the number of combat clashes in the Kursk direction grew to 68 in the past 24 hours, up from a daily tally of around 40 at the end of last week.
As the war approaches its third year, Ukrainian troops are weary and outnumbered along the 1,170 kilometres frontline.
“For the third day the enemy is conducting intensive assaults in the Kursk region,” Oleksandr Syrskyi told government and regional officials in an online speech. He added that Russia was “actively” using North Korean troops who were taking significant losses.
Ukraine launched a surprise incursion into the Kursk region of Russia in August but since then it has lost more than 40% of the territory it controlled there.
Military analysts say the incursion into Russia has extended an already long front line, adding more strain on the Ukrainian troops.
Syrskyi said fighting was also escalating in the eastern Donetsk region where Russian forces were advancing at their fastest pace this year. He told government and regional officials that Russian troops continued to focus their assaults on the strategic cities of Pokrovsk and Kurahove.
The escalation in fighting comes ahead of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House next month. Trump said on Monday that Ukraine should be prepared to make a deal with Russia to bring the nearly three-year-old war to an end.
President Vladimir Putin recently said that the large number of men in Russia are signing up for the military voluntarily was turning the tide of the Ukraine war in Moscow’s favour. The Russian President added that he hoped his army would keep advancing.
President Putin, who said Russian forces had pushed the Ukrainian army out of nearly 200 settlements this year and held the initiative along the entire frontline, made the comments in a speech at the Defence Ministry at a time when his army is advancing at the fastest pace since 2022, according to open-source maps.
Team Bharatshakti
(With inputs from Reuters)
