Ukrainian forces have killed or wounded greater than 1,000 North Korean troops Russia has despatched to struggle them, in keeping with Kyiv and officers in South Korea.
“In response to preliminary knowledge, the variety of killed and wounded North Korean troopers within the Kursk area already exceeds 3,000 folks,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy mentioned in his night tackle on December 23.
South Korean intelligence put the North Korean useless and wounded at 1,100, and mentioned the North was making ready to ship extra troops. North Korea despatched 11,000 troops to struggle within the Russian area of Kursk, which Ukraine counter-invaded in August.
North Korean troops have been evidently untrained in coping with Ukrainian drones, which took a excessive toll. In a single occasion, Ukrainian drone operators recorded how a North Korean soldier unintentionally shot his comrade as they tried to shoot down the drone that was filming them.
They might have been attempting to execute a tactic described in a pocket book recovered from the physique of a North Korean soldier.
“When detecting a drone, you must create a trio, the place the one who lures the drone retains a distance of seven metres, and those that shoot it, 10-12 metres,” it learn. “If the one who’s luring stands nonetheless, the drone will even cease its motion. At this second, the one who’s taking pictures will get rid of the drone.”
Ukraine’s Particular Operations Forces mentioned on Telegram their eighth regiment had killed 77 North Koreans in Kursk and wounded 40 over three days, with out specifying the placement. A video collage launched by the regiment confirmed drones bearing down on particular person enemy troops. Their sign cuts out at point-blank vary, indicating the second when the drones detonate.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has been embarrassed by the primary seize of Russian land since World Warfare II and had initially pledged to push Ukrainian forces out by October 1.
Because the deadline drew close to, his spokesman modified the Kremlin place, saying Ukraine’s forces can be ejected “in a well timed method”. Putin bolstered that vagueness in an annual information convention on December 19. “I can’t and don’t wish to identify a selected date when they are going to be knocked out,” he mentioned.
Some analysts steered this might point out a change within the Kremlin’s priorities, however Russia additionally appeared to make a concerted effort to enhance its techniques on Christmas Eve.
Oleg Chaus, a Ukrainian sergeant combating in Kursk, mentioned that whereas for the previous month, the Russian assaults have been “chaotic” and “disorganised”, three items attacked in an organised method and with air help on December 24.
“All of the servicemen of those three teams had very high-quality ammunition. Every of them had disposable grenade launchers, they’d evening imaginative and prescient gadgets, they’d small assault backpacks with them,” mentioned the sergeant of Ukraine’s seventeenth Heavy Mechanised Brigade. “If a kind of three teams had not been destroyed, they’d have continued transferring.”
It appeared that these items included North Korean troops.
Russia creeps ahead in Donetsk
Ukraine’s different scorching entrance – its jap area of Donetsk – noticed intensified combating throughout the Christmas vacation.
Russia launched 248 assaults on Ukrainian positions on December 24, mentioned Ukraine’s normal workers, an unusually excessive quantity, followed by greater than 200 assaults on Christmas day.
Throughout this time, geolocated footage steered Russian forces broke by means of to the western a part of town of Kurakhove, which they’d first entered in late October, finishing its conquest.
Anastasia Bobovnikova, spokesperson for Luhansk Technical College, mentioned fierce battles have been additionally ongoing for the Central Mine within the metropolis of Toretsk.
Probably the most intense combating, nonetheless, appeared to happen across the city of Pokrovsk, the place 1 / 4 to a fifth of the Russian assaults came about.
“Pokrovsk is a crucial highway and rail hub, facilitating the motion of troops and provides throughout jap Ukraine,” Demetries Andrew Grimes, a former US naval officer, aviator and diplomat, informed Al Jazeera.
“Capturing Pokrovsk would disrupt Ukrainian provide strains and improve Russian operational capabilities within the transportation and distribution of provides throughout your complete entrance line,” he mentioned.
“The target is prone to safe the remainder of the Donbas and Zaporizhia,” mentioned Michael Gjerstad, a land warfare analysis analyst for the Worldwide Institute for Strategic Research.
“This implies probably capturing Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, which have industrial and financial websites which are vital for Ukraine, probably transferring in the direction of Zaporizhia alongside the N15 highway from the Kurakhove pocket, which might additionally bypass a variety of the Ukrainian defences, which face south,” he informed Al Jazeera.
These assaults, whereas clawing away land, have been additionally expensive. Bobovnikova mentioned Russian forces have been shedding a mechanised battalion per week and a brigade a month in Toretsk.
Within the 10 days between December 17 and December 26, Ukraine’s normal workers estimates Russia misplaced 17,400 troopers, which interprets to 52,200 a month. Russian recruitment capability is taken into account to be no more than 30,000 a month.
Nonetheless, Putin sounded bullish in his information convention. “We’re not speaking about advancing 100, 200, 300 metres; our fighters are reclaiming territory in sq. kilometres,” he mentioned.
The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based assume tank, assessed that Russia had captured 3,306sq kilometres (1,276sq miles) of Ukrainian land throughout 2024.
“The place of the entrance line will not be going to be what determines this battle,” mentioned Keir Giles, a Eurasia professional for Chatham Home.
“Within the financial and political domains, in Russia’s marketing campaign towards Ukrainian important infrastructure and the techniques for protecting folks alive by means of the winter, it is usually an image of Russia holding a bonus, significantly after the arrival of Donald Trump,” he informed Al Jazeera, referring to Trump’s win within the US presidential election in November. Trump has mentioned that he desires to finish the battle instantly, and senior members of his crew, together with Vice President-elect JD Vance, have steered that Ukraine would want to concede territory at present held by Russia as a part of a ceasefire.
Russia demonstrated its command of the air on December 25, with an enormous air assault involving 78 missiles of varied sorts and 106 Shahed kamikaze drones. Ukraine’s defences shot down 113 of the 184 targets, however many hit power infrastructure.
“Right now, Putin intentionally selected Christmas for an assault. What may very well be extra inhuman?” Zelenskyy mentioned in his night tackle on the identical day.
“The targets are our power sector. They proceed to struggle for a blackout in Ukraine.”
5 days earlier, on December 20, Russia launched 5 ballistic missiles at Kyiv. Ukraine mentioned it downed all 5, however falling particles hit a constructing that housed a number of embassies. It was a part of a broader in a single day assault that concerned a sixth missile and 65 drones.
Zelenskyy has been asking for ever-higher numbers of defence techniques from his NATO allies. On December 19, NATO Secretary-Normal Mark Rutte mentioned the alliance would focus on present the techniques Zelenskyy has sought.
4 days later, Germany introduced an enormous new army assist bundle, together with two Patriot air defence launchers – every carrying 4 missiles, two short-range IRIS-T SLS launchers and one medium-range IRIS-T SLM launcher, every carrying eight missiles.
Additionally included within the introduced bundle have been two Skynex 35mm air defence batteries, and ammunition for all these air defence techniques.
Subsequent 12 months, Ukraine is anticipated to obtain 4 extra IRIS-T SLM batteries of three launchers every, and three IRIS-T SLS launchers.
Throughout his information convention, Putin challenged the West to a contest between his new Oreshnik ballistic missile – test-fired at Ukraine for the primary time on November 21 – and Western air defence techniques.
“Let Western consultants suggest to us … to conduct some form of technological experiment, say, a high-tech duel of the twenty first century. Allow them to decide some goal for destruction, say in Kyiv, focus all their air defence and missile defence forces there, and we are going to strike there with Oreshnik and see what occurs. We’re prepared for such an experiment, however is the opposite facet prepared?”
Ukraine’s deep strikes
Ukraine additionally struck at Russian power and defence websites.
On December 19, Ukraine’s army intelligence (GUR) mentioned its saboteurs set “a number of” army refuelling stations alight in Novosibirsk, destroying them.
On the identical day, a Ukrainian drone assault on the Novoshakhtinsk oil refinery, the most important refinery in southern Russia, pressured the plant to halt operations, The Moscow Instances reported.
GUR additionally revealed its saboteurs had been liable for destroying an Antonov-72 army transport airplane on the tarmac of Ostafievo airfield close to Moscow on December 12. Footage revealed on December 22 purportedly confirmed a drone strike on the Metal Horse oil depot close to town of Oryol.
The GUR mentioned it had struck a warehouse within the Alabuga financial zone in Russia on December 23, the place elements for Shahed-136 UAVs have been saved. It claimed to have destroyed 65 fuselages of assault drones, in addition to engines, navigation techniques, and thermal imaging cameras for the manufacturing of 400 Shahed items.
On December 26, Ukraine’s air pressure mentioned it had struck an industrial facility in Russia’s Rostov area that produced gasoline for solid-state rockets. The gasoline from the manufacturing unit at Kamensk-Shakhtinsky was utilized in ballistic missiles, together with these fired into Ukraine’s civilian areas and energy crops, Ukraine mentioned.
Ukraine’s overseas intelligence service estimated that Russian refineries’ downtime elevated partly because of Ukrainian air strikes in 2024 to 41million tonnes from 36million tonnes final 12 months.
Zelenskyy informed Ukrainians the armed forces would proceed this coverage.
“We will certainly proceed to strike Russian army targets – with drones and missiles, more and more with Ukrainian-made ones, particularly concentrating on army bases and Russian army infrastructure used on this terror towards our folks,” he mentioned in his night tackle on December 21. “Our defence is completely simply.”
The drone battle
Ukraine has prioritised the event of unmanned techniques throughout the battle to avoid wasting manpower.
On December 20, Ukraine’s national guard mentioned it had efficiently carried out a floor operation in Kharkiv utilizing solely floor and aerial robotic techniques.
The assault included assault drones with mounted machineguns, kamikaze floor drones and drones able to mining and demining. A spokesman who described the operation in a telethon additionally spoke of “giant multi-rotor copters that may carry a big cost, for instance, an antitank mine, and FPV drones. All that is supported and managed by many carousels of surveillance drones. That’s, we’re speaking about dozens of items of robotic and unmanned gear concurrently on a small part of the entrance.”
Russia, too, has tried to maintain up. Ukraine’s armed forces mentioned they have been dealing with a brand new risk within the type of Russian drones guided by fibre optics. The drones are proof against jamming by digital warfare means and have confirmed profitable on the battlefield – together with in Pokrovsk.
“We missed this second with fibre optics and, frankly, we don’t know take care of it,” mentioned Ivan Sekach, a spokesman for the one hundred and tenth Mechanised Brigade.
A particular forces spokesman informed ArmyTV that Ukraine was coming to grips with the brand new drones by taking pictures them down with Mavic drones or utilizing their propellers to chop their fibre optics, rendering them uncontrollable.
Ukraine is creating its personal fibre optic drone, the Black Widow Internet 10, which its general staff mentioned is within the remaining levels of approval to be used.
Ukraine has been creating robotic and drone techniques at a livid tempo. Its armed forces launched a brand new high-altitude battlefield surveillance drone throughout the previous week. The Shchedryk can fly out of the vary of most Russian air defence weapons and operates day and evening.
Autonomy can be a prime precedence for Ukraine, and a Ukrainian drone firm just lately reported that it had assembled a prototype of the primary FPV drone made solely from elements manufactured in Ukraine.
