Kyiv launches fresh Kursk offensive – DW – 01/05/2025

Russia has captured nearly 3,600 square kilometers (1,390 square miles) of Ukrainian territory in the past year, according to media reports from Kyiv — an area roughly the size of the Mediterranean island of Mallorca, or Long Island in New York.

Ukraine suffered its worst territorial losses in November, losing 610 square kilometers, as the Russians captured approximately 20 square kilometers on a daily basis, the military blog Militarnyi reported. 

It cited map data from DeepStateMAP, another military blog. 

The territorial losses in 2024 were reportedly multiple times that of 2023, although there was no official confirmation of the figures. 

Moscow appears to have confirmed that Ukraine has launched a “counterattack” in Russia’s western border region of Kursk.

The region is the one where Kyiv’s forces began a shock ground offensive last August.

Pro-Kremlin military bloggers had reported earlier that a powerful new offensive was underway.

“At about 9 a.m. Moscow time (0600 GMT/UTC), in order to halt the advance of Russian troops in the Kursk direction, the enemy launched a counterattack,” the Russian Defense Ministry said.

The ministry added that Ukraine had used two tanks, a dozen armored vehicles, and a demolition unit in the new offensive. 

It said the troops were headed towards the village of Berdin.

“The operation to destroy the Ukrainian army formations continues,” the ministry said.

Kyiv says Ukrainian forces have started a new offensive in the western Russian region of Kursk after their surprise incursion into the territory in August.

“Kursk region, good news: Russia is getting what it deserves,” the head of the Ukrainian presidential office, Andriy Yermak, wrote on Telegram. 

His comments appeared to confirm reports by military bloggers that the new advance in Kursk was taking place.

The Russians had been taken by surprise in the Kursk area, with attacks by Ukrainian forces ongoing in several directions, said Andriy Kovalenko, the head of the Centre for Countering Disinformation at the National Security and Defence Council, which reports to the Ukrainian president.

While the military itself did not initially provide any information about the attacks, the main target appears to be the road to Kursk, northeast of the small Ukrainian-controlled town of Sudzha.

Videos said to be from the region show several columns of Ukrainian armored vehicles moving at high speed, with mine-clearing vehicles at the forefront.

Reports from influential war bloggers indicated that a new Ukrainian assault in Russia’s Kursk area has Moscow’s forces on the defensive.

The Russian bloggers support the war in Ukraine but have often reported critically on shortcomings.

“Despite strong pressure from the enemy, our units are heroically holding the line,” the Operativnye Svodki [Operational Reports] channel said.

The channel said artillery and small-arms battles were taking place, with Ukraine using Western-armoured vehicles to bring in large numbers of infantry.

The bloggers said fighting was concentrated just north of a highway from the border town of Sudzha to Kursk, the capital of the Russian region. 

One influential blogger, Yuri Podolyak, said the assault was most likely a Ukrainian distraction manoeuver, possibly to set up a strike on Glushkovo, further west. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has reported heavy losses of Russian units seeking to recapture the Kursk region.

“In fighting today and yesterday around the settlement of Makhnivka in the Kursk region, the Russian army has lost an infantry battalion of North Korean soldiers and Russian paratroopers,” Zelensky said in his nightly video message to the nation. 

The reports were not independently verifiable. A battalion of Russian forces officially has up to 500 men.

Recently, videos have repeatedly surfaced showing attempts by Russian units, sometimes reinforced by North Korean soldiers, to storm the Kursk region.

rc/sms (AFP, AP, dpa, Reuters)