With its new attack in Kursk Oblast, Ukraine has demonstrated Russia's inability to recapture the region, said Col. Ants Kiviselg, head of the Estonian Defense Forces (EDF) Intelligence Center. The EDF colonel also noted however,

Ukraine launched a new offensive in Russia's Kursk region Sunday, Moscow and Kyiv said. Ukrainian forces had captured about 500 square miles of the western Russian province in a surprise incursion in August, but Russian and North Korean troops are believed to have retaken 40-50% of that area.

The surprise attack seeks to reverse Ukraine’s decreasing hold of the region. Since Kyiv’s forces gained partial control of Kursk following a daring cross-border assault last August, Russian troops, aided by North Korean soldiers, have halved the territory held by Ukraine, albeit while suffering thousands of casualties.

Russian forces continue to make costly but consistent gains in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine. They are steadily grinding down a pocket of resistance around the town of Kurakhove and are also fighting to envelop the larger nearby city of Pokrovsk, Ukrainian soldiers and officials said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday that Russia had suffered heavy losses in five months of fighting Ukrainian forces in southern Russia's Kursk region, with nearly 15,000 killed.

A total of 144 combat clashes have occurred on the battlefield since the start of 9 January, with most of the fighting taking place on the Pokrovsk, Kursk and Kurakhove fronts. Source: General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on Facebook,

Ukraine's 47th Mechanized Brigade said on Jan. 9 that it had, together with other units, repelled a "massive" Russian assault in the embattled Kursk Oblast, releasing footage of the engagement. The report came days after Ukraine reportedly launched renewed offensive operations in Kursk Oblast,

Ukrainian special forces destroy Russian equipment in Kursk Oblast – video The Russian army deployed an enormous amount of personnel and equipment, with tanks fitted with mine-clearing trailers leading enemy convoys.

Russia has intensified attacks on the town of Sudzha in Kursk Oblast and its neighbouring villages. Source: Oleksii Dmytrashkivskyi, press officer of the temporary military commandant's office on the territory of the Russian Federation,