WAVE OF STEEL
Ukraine launches surprise Kursk offensive & vows Russia ‘is getting what it deserves’ with ‘significant’ troop losses
In the new brave push, the Ukrainian Armed Forces attacked the Russian army in several directions in the region
UKRAINE has stunned Vladimir Putin's forces with a counter offensive in the Kursk region while Russia suffers "significant" troop losses - including North Korean soldiers.
Zelensky's country originally invaded a swathe of the region in August but had been losing ground gradually - until now.
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In the new brave push, the Ukrainian Armed Forces attacked the Russian army in several directions in the region, Kyiv’s Centre for Combating Disinformation (CCD) said.
In a statement on Telegram, Russia's defence ministry said: "At around 9am Moscow time, in order to stop the offensive by the Russian troops in the Kursk direction, the enemy launched a counter-attack by an assault detachment consisting of two tanks, one counter-obstacle vehicle, and 12 armoured fighting vehicles."
Various Russian military bloggers provided more details about the attack, saying it was launched from the Ukrainians' base at Sudza.
They added that the soldiers were advancing with armoured groups in the direction of the village Bolshoe Soldatskoe and the neighbouring Berdyn.
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Andriy Yermak, Head of the Ukrainian President's Office, wrote on Telegram: "Kurshchyna [Kursk region], good news.
"Russia is getting what it deserves."
And Ukraine's counter-disinformation chief Andriy Kovalenko said in a Telegram post on Sunday: "The Russians in Kursk are experiencing great anxiety because they were attacked from several directions and it came as a surprise to them."
Infantry had been concealed in forested areas ahead of the advance.
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They reportedly attacked Russian positions in the villages of Pushkarnoe, Leonidovo, and Nikolskoye.
Some reports say Ukraine undertook mine clearance work before pushing forwards.
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It's unclear whether the offensive is at such a large scale that it could lead to any significant changes on the frontline.
One Russian outlet tried to claim the attack was a “last resort counteroffensive”, seeking to secure some territorial gains inside Russia to compensate for losses in Donbas.
In a sign of pressure for Russia in Kursk region, Putin’s troubleshooting deputy defence minister General Yunus-Bek Yevkurov arrived in the region.
Within a mere few hours of Ukrainian tanks rolling in to begin their surprise offensive, Yevkurov appeared for an emergency meeting in Kursk with the acting governor.
The General is said to be one of the toughest and most trusted by mad Vlad - sent to try and fight back against Ukraine's surprise counteroffensive.
Russian War Gonzo channel said: “The [Ukrainian] advance units are moving under the cover of electronic warfare installations, which complicates their destruction using attack drones, after which the main forces are pulled up in armoured fighting vehicles.
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“Attempts are being made to strike not only at the forward positions of our troops, but also at the rear areas of the Kursk region using long-range missiles and drones.”
Russian aviation was active over the skies of Kursk region and a Ukrainian tank was seen being hit by a Russian Lancet kamikaze drone close to the border.
The advance came after a recent visit by Ukrainian commander in chief General Oleksandr Syrskyi to Kursk region inside occupied Russia ahead of today's advance by his troops.
He said as he awarded honours to troops: "Thanks to your steadfastness and courage, the enemy's losses in the Kursk region amounted to more than 38,000 personnel and more than 1,000 pieces of equipment.
"Thank you for your courage, heroism and military feat.
"We will continue to destroy the occupiers. And it doesn't matter what passports they have: Russian or North Korean. The fight continues."
As fighting continues, Putin has reportedly lost up to several hundred North Korean and Russian soldiers in the past 48 hours after a fierce battle in Kursk.
Ukraine valiantly defended a village in the war-torn region as "a battalion" of Vlad's and Kim Jong-un's men were slaughtered after being thrown into the mincer.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said his troops managed to counter the oncoming Russian siege on Makhnovka in a move that is said to leave Putin humiliated over the losses.
Zelensky announced on Saturday: "In battles yesterday and today near just one village, Makhnovka, in Kursk region, the Russian army lost up to a battalion of North Korean infantry soldiers and Russian paratroops."
The heroic leader labelled the losses as "significant".
Battalions can often vary in size but Vlad is known to throw as many men as he can conjure up into assaults with most being made up of hundreds of fighters.
Vlad has managed to call in over 10,000 reinforcements from his tyrannical pal over in North Korea, claim Ukraine and the West.
This has drastically bolstered up his ranks despite many of the foreign fighters being heavily under-trained.
North Korean losses in Kursk are mounting up with Russia using them as cannon fodder and often leaving them unprotected on the battlefield, Zelensky also said last week.
Ukrainian forces have occupied much of Kursk since a surprise counter-offensive back in August.
The mass cross-border incursion booted Vlad's gleeful men out of the Ukrainian region and left them scrambling to reclaim the land.
Further "fierce battles" are also ongoing along the 620 mile front line, the president added.
North Korean troops suffer 1000 losses as crazed dictators vow to carry on fighting
Experts have warned over the past few weeks that Moscow is happy to lose troops as long as they continue to grab land inside Ukraine.
An expert has told The Sun that Vlad is "notorious, historically, for being not particularly moved by human suffering”.
The despot is driven by success so will do whatever it takes to win the war, Nick Reynolds, a land warfare expert at RUSI, added.
Ukrainian analyst Taras Chmut says Putin's army is managing to seize 20 square kilometres of land every day.
Across the whole of 2024 Kyiv is believed to have given up around 3,600 square kilometres across multiple fronts.
It proved to be a damaging year for the Western ally after they suffered losses of just 540 square kilometres in 2023, say reports.
But Luke Pollard, the UK's under-secretary for defence, predicts that Russian losses will reach one million within six months.
The dictator has plenty of what British Defence Intelligence calls "tolerance for casualties".
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Putin’s strategy appears to centre around flooding the front line with enough troops to overwhelm the Ukrainians over time.
Russia is the clear favourite if the conflict continues to be a war of attrition, experts fear.
Officials estimate there are around 200,000 Russian troops in Ukrainian territory at any one time.
But for this brute force approach to work, Putin must continually replace the hundreds of thousands of soldiers he is losing.
These numbers are starting to come from North Koreans.
The war in Ukraine refused to stop over the New Year as peace deal hopes were dashed and attacks raged on.
There were huge strikes from both sides amid reports Russian leader Vladimir Putin had rejected proposals to help end the conflict.
The exchanges followed a lull in recent days, sparking rumours of a behind-the-scenes push to end the fighting before the new year.
A Russian emissary was reported to have flown to Washington for secret talks.
But Ukraine TV host Dmitry Gordon claimed Putin had pulled the plug at the last minute and backed out of a video call with US President-elect Donald Trump, before ordering a new wave of attacks.
Putin was also forced to cancel Russia's firework displays due to joyless consequence of his war against Ukraine.
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There were claims that the war-wounded could be scared of the noise from fireworks.
There were also fears that Ukraine could sabotage the traditional fireworks displays.
Is Russia's strategy working?
By Patrick Harrington, Foreign News Reporter
The Russian strategy in 2024 has been to stretch the frontline across a very large distance, which plays to their advantage as the larger army.
However, there has also been a recent step-up in offensive pressure.
Nick Reynolds, a land warfare expert at RUSI, told The Sun the Russians are "no longer just holding the line, but trying to increase pressure" and, although the gains have been incremental, this strategy is working.
In November last year, Ukraine lost more land than any month since September 2022 - with an area almost the size of Greater London falling into Russian hands.
And data released by the Institute for the Study of War shows that Russia gained almost six times as much territory in 2024 as in 2023.
Russia’s latest focus has been Pokrovsk in Ukraine's southern Donetsk region, where forces have pushed hard for months to claim the city, which had a pre-war population of 60,000.
Over the past few days, Russia has declared victories in villages around 10 miles from the main city, which suggests they are closing in.
Mr Reynolds believes it is only a matter of time until the city is taken - despite Vlad facing "heavy losses".
He said: "I don't see anything that can really change at this stage.
"Russia has forward momentum on the battlefield, though it is slow going.
"They are taking heavy losses and they lack the capability to really break the Ukrainian lines, so it is incremental, but it is working."
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