Russia’s military said on Monday its forces had captured a key town in eastern Ukraine, while Ukrainian officials cited thousands of Russian casualties in fighting in Russia’s Kursk region.
The Russian Defense Ministry said its control of the city of Kurakhov, after several months of fighting for the logistics hub, would allow Russian forces to advance faster than elsewhere in the Donetsk region.
While Ukrainian officials did not confirm the loss of Kurakhov on Monday, the Army General Staff said in a report late Monday that Russian forces had launched attacks on Ukrainian targets in the city.
Russian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an overnight address on Monday that the Ukrainian offensive at Kursk, which began five months ago, had caused 38,000 Russian military casualties.
“The Russians have deployed their strongest units in Kursk, including North Korean troops. The important thing is that all this manpower can no longer be redirected to other fronts – neither to the Donetsk region, nor against Sumy, the Kharkiv region or Zaporizhia,” Zelensky said.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said earlier Monday that North Korea and China are the “biggest drivers” of allowing Russia to wage war in Ukraine, and called for security assurances to be part of possible future talks to end the conflict. May need it.
Speaking during a visit to South Korea, Blinken said supplies of North Korean artillery, ammunition and troops, as well as Chinese support for Russia’s military industrial base, would allow the Russian military to continue the fighting that began in February 2022. Providing necessary support.
He said North Korea is already seeing a return to its involvement in the conflict in the form of Russian military equipment and training of North Korean troops.
“We believe it intends to share space and satellite technology with the DPRK,” Blinken said.
With just two weeks left in the Biden administration, the United States is rushing to send remaining authorized aid to Ukraine amid uncertainty over how President-elect Donald Trump might approach the war.
Blinken said Monday that the US is trying to ensure Ukraine has what it needs to defend itself and has the “strongest hand” at the table in future negotiations with Russia.
“If there is going to be a ceasefire at some point, Putin will not have it in his mind that it’s ‘game over,'” Blinken said. “His royal ambitions remain, and what he would like to do is rest, get fit again and eventually strike again.”
Blinken said that “there needs to be enough deterrence so that he doesn’t do that, so that he thinks twice – thrice – before engaging in any re-aggression.”
Ukraine’s military said on Monday it shot down 79 of the 128 drones the Russian military deployed overnight targeting several Ukrainian regions.
The Ukrainian Air Force said the intercepts occurred in the Cherkasy, Chernihiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Kirovohrad, Kiev, Mykolaiv, Poltava, Sumy, Vinnytsia and Zhytomyr regions.
Authorities in Cherkasy reported damage to residential buildings and a grain warehouse due to falling drone debris.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said it destroyed 12 Ukrainian aerial drones all along the Russia-Ukraine border.
Belgorod region governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said the attacks injured three people and damaged several residential buildings.
Some information for this report was provided by the Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.