Ukraine Russia war latest: Kyiv strikes three Russian air defence systems as surprise Kursk attack rolls on
The value of the Russian air defence systems reportedly damaged by Ukraine in just one day is over £24 million
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Your support makes all the difference.Ukraine has claimed to have destroyed three Russian air defence systems in just one day, worth tens of millions of pounds.
Ukrainian navy commander Oleksii Neizhpapa said they had hit two Russian anti-missile Pantsir-S1 systems and one OSA anti-aircraft vehicle in one day. The Pantsir’s have an estimated value of $15m (£12m).
“Our soldiers continue to turn Russian equipment into scrap metal,” he wrote on a Facebook post.
He shared a video apparently showing a drone hitting a Pantsir-S1 vehicle. Both Pantsir-S1’s were destroyed in occupied Kherson, southern Ukraine, he added.
It comes as Ukraine has launched a surprise counterattack in the Russian border region of Kursk, targeting “at least three” different points of the frontline in that direction.
According to war trackers, Ukrainian troops launched a second day of multiple attacks on Sunday on the eastern and western flank of what they already control in Kursk, after partially capturing the region last August.
The Institute for the Study of War, a US-based think tank mapping the frontline, said Ukraine had made advances to the northeast of Sudzha, the only city in Kusk controlled by Kyiv.
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Russian drone kills one, injures nine in passenger bus in Kherson
A Russian drone attacked a civilian passenger bus in Ukraine’s southern city of Kherson yesterday, killing at least one person and injuring nine more, the Kherson regional governor said.
The bus with shattered windows and pools of blood on its floor could be seen on a video from the site, shared by the governor alongside his statement on Telegram.
A 49-year-old man was killed, the regional prosecutor’s office said.
Civilians in Kherson region, which Russian forces partially occupy, and its capital constantly come under Russian drone attacks. Local authorities report casualties from such strikes on an almost daily basis.
Russia claims it has captured another town in eastern Ukraine but Kyiv doesn't confirm the loss
Russia claims it has captured another town in eastern Ukraine but Kyiv doesn't confirm the loss
Russia’s Defense Ministry is claiming that its troops in eastern Ukraine have captured the town of Kurakhove after a monthslong battle
Why is Ukraine fighting to keep a piece of Kursk?
Over the weekend, Ukraine began a new offensive inside Russia to extend its incursion within Kursk oblast, an attack Kyiv has not yet acknowledged.
In a brief remark alluding to the events in Kursk, a senior Ukrainian official said Russia was “getting what it deserves” there.
Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukrainian forces had established a buffer zone and inflicted heavy losses in Kursk, preventing Moscow from deploying its troops in key areas of the eastern front.
Ukraine’s main achievement in the past five months of fighting has been its capture of territory inside Russia’s Kursk region, something it hopes could prove a bargaining chip in possible peace talks.
Independent military analyst Franz-Stefan Gady said Ukraine was trying to hold its pocket of Kursk for as long as possible, even as Russia continued to push deeper into eastern Ukraine.
“There’s a likelihood that we haven’t seen the main thrust of this Ukrainian offensive operation just yet,” he told Reuters. “We are essentially talking about platoon-sized, company-sized assaults with fairly limited gains thus far.” It remained to be seen if Kyiv’s forces could open up another axis of advance, Mr Gady added.
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Russia claims gains in eastern Ukraine as fierce fighting rages
Russia claims its forces have made important gains in eastern Ukraine while continuing to fend off a new Ukrainian offensive inside the Kursk region of western Russia, where a second day of fierce fighting was under way.
The General Staff of Ukraine’s military, in a late evening report, said Russian forces had launched 25 attacks on Ukrainian positions around Kurakhove, but said nothing about the town changing hands.
The Russian defence ministry said its forces had captured the town of Kurakhove, 32km (20 miles) south of Pokrovsk, a Ukrainian logistics hub toward which Russian forces have been advancing for months.
The Russian ministry said taking Kurakhove, which had held out for many weeks, would enable its forces to boost the pace of their advance in Ukraine’s Donetsk region. It also said it had captured Dachenske, a village five miles (8km) Pokrovsk.
Officials in Kyiv have denied the loss of Kurakhove. Viktor Trehubov, spokesperson for Ukraine’s Khortytsia group of forces, told Reuters that, as of yesterday morning, Kyiv’s forces were still engaging Russian troops inside Kurakhove.
Volodymyr Zelensky said Moscow had suffered big losses in five months of fighting in Russia’s Kursk region with nearly 15,000 killed but made no mention of Kurakhove.
Ukraine Kursk offensive: What Kyiv stands to gain and lose in surprise counterattack
Ukraine has launched a fresh counterattack in the Russian border region of Kursk as it looks to gain the most territory it can ahead of possible peace negotiations – with US president-elect Donald Trump saying he wants to end the war as soon as possible.
The attack started over the weekend, with unverified footage circulated by Russian military bloggers showing a column of Ukrainian tanks and armoured personnel carriers heading towards the village of Berdin, a small area outside of what Ukraine currently controls in Kursk.
Kyiv’s military has not officially acknowledged a fresh offensive, months after an initial incursion that caught Russia off guard and allowed Ukraine to capture a swathe of Russian territory in the region. The head of the Ukrainian presidential office, Andriy Yermak, said: “Kursk region, good news, Russia is getting what it deserves”.
Tom Watling reports:
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Russian military commentators are ‘worried’ about the multipronged Ukrainian attack in the border region
Nearly 15,000 Russians have been killed in Kursk region, says Zelensky
Russia has suffered heavy losses in five months of fighting Ukrainian forces in southern Russia’s Kursk region, with nearly 15,000 killed, Volodymyr Zelensky said.
“During the Kursk operation, the enemy has already lost 38,000 of their soldiers in this direction alone, with nearly 15,000 of these losses being irreversible,” Mr Zelensky said in his nightly video address.
His remarks come a day after he said North Korea has lost more than 3,800 soldiers fighting in Kursk.
Ukraine launched a mass incursion into the Kursk region in August and has seized chunks of territory, though Russia’s military says it has recaptured much of that.
Ukrainian and Western assessments say some 11,000 North Korean troops are fighting alongside Russian forces in the region. Russia has neither confirmed nor denied their presence.
Trump's Ukraine envoy postpones Kyiv trip until after inauguration
Donald Trump’s incoming Ukraine envoy has postponed a fact-finding trip to Kyiv and other European capitals until after the US president-elect’s inauguration on 20 January, sources said.
Retired Lieutenant-General Keith Kellogg, who is set to serve as Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, had initially planned a mission to Kyiv to meet with Ukrainian leaders in early January, Reuters reported last month. His team was also setting up meetings with officials in other European capitals, including Rome and Paris.
But the trip, which would have marked the first time incoming Trump administration officials headed to Kyiv since the 5 November election, has been pushed back, according to four sources with knowledge of the trip’s planning.
Mr Kellogg is now expected to travel to Ukraine after Trump takes office, though no date has been set, the sources requesting anonymity said.
It was not immediately clear why the diplomat was delaying the trip.
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