Ukrainian and Russian officials said Sunday that Ukrainian forces have launched an offensive in Russia’s Kursk region, aiming to regain control of the region as the country struggles to stem persistent Russian aggression across eastern Ukraine. announced that it appears to be.
The Russian Ministry of Defense claimed that the Ukrainian military launched a major offensive using tanks, demining equipment and at least a dozen armored vehicles to thwart the attack. Last summer, Ukrainian forces unexpectedly attacked Kursk and captured about 500 square miles of territory, which Russia is gradually regaining.
“The Russians are very worried because they are under attack on multiple fronts and it was a surprise to them,” Andriy Kovalenko, a senior Ukrainian government official who focuses on Russian disinformation operations, said, referring to the Kursk region. ” issued a statement.
Contacted by phone, Ukrainian soldiers fighting in the region say Ukraine is carrying out attacks in parts of the Kursk region and that heavy fighting is taking place there. He declined to discuss the operation.
Neither side’s claims could be independently verified, and the scope of the Ukrainian attack remained unclear.
Military analysts say the attack could be a deliberate attempt to misdirect and force some of the front lines to react in the hope that Russian forces will be weakened elsewhere. He said that there is a sex.
Russian forces continue to make steady advances in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, albeit at great cost. Ukrainian soldiers and officials say they are steadily crushing resistance around the town of Krahov in the southern Donbas region and are fighting to siege the large city of Pokrovsk further north.
They are now located less than a mile from an important supply road leading to Pokrovsk, which served as an important logistics and transportation hub for Ukrainian forces in the region.
Some American officials initially expressed skepticism last August about the wisdom of invading Ukraine, fearing it would lead to attrition of an already exhausted, understaffed brigade struggling to stabilize its defense lines. I was worried that there might be.
But as Russian casualties mounted and Ukraine consolidated its position in the region, some of those same American officials changed their assessment.
Ukraine’s military leadership believes that forcing the Kremlin to spend precious resources on Kursk could allow the Kremlin to send tens of thousands of troops to step up Russian offensives in other areas of the front. He insisted that it would disappear.
Ukraine currently captures less than half of the territory it captured in last summer’s Kursk Offensive, but despite repeated Russian counterattacks, including a recent offensive reinforced by thousands of North Korean soldiers, it has lost control of the remaining territory. continues to defend.
Russian President Vladimir V. Putin has sought to downplay the significance of the invasion of Kursk, the first ground invasion of Russia since World War II.
He said it was the military’s “sacred duty” to remove Ukrainian forces, but recently refused to provide a timeline for when that would be accomplished.
“We will definitely drive them out,” Putin said at his annual press conference in December. “We are unable to answer any questions regarding specific dates at this time.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the Russian government continues to pay a high price for expelling Ukrainians.
“Specifically, in today’s and yesterday’s battles near just one village, Makhnovka, in the Kursk region, Russian troops were defeated by an infantry battalion, including North Korean soldiers and Russian paratroopers,” Zelenskiy said on Saturday night. said. A battalion consists of 600 to 800 soldiers.
Although his claims could not be verified, the Pentagon recently announced that North Korea suffered heavy casualties on the Kursk front, with more than 1,000 killed and wounded in just a few weeks.
Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported that around 340 Ukrainian soldiers were killed or wounded in Kursk in the past 24 hours. The agency did not mention Russian casualties, citing the Russian Ministry of Defense.
Zelenskiy said maintaining the Kursk landing would be a “very strong trump card” for Kiev in any negotiations with Russia.
President-elect Donald J. Trump has vowed to end the war quickly after taking office, but he has not said how.
Lyubov Sholdko, Natalia Novosorova and valerie hopkins Contributed to the report.
