Ukrainian forces have killed or wounded greater than 1,000 North Korean troops Russia has despatched to battle them, in line with Kyiv and officers in South Korea.
“Based on 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 handle on December 23.
South Korean intelligence put the North Korean useless and wounded at 1,100, and mentioned the North was getting ready to ship extra troops. North Korea despatched 11,000 troops to battle within the Russian area of Kursk, which Ukraine counter-invaded in August.
North Korean troops had 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 by chance 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 have to 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 capturing 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 situation. 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 Conflict 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 could be ejected “in a well timed method”. Putin strengthened that vagueness in an annual information convention on December 19. “I can not and don’t need to title a particular date when they are going to be knocked out,” he mentioned.
Some analysts advised 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 preventing in Kursk, mentioned that whereas for the previous month, the Russian assaults had been “chaotic” and “disorganised”, three items attacked in an organised method and with air assist 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 night time 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 preventing throughout the Christmas vacation.
Russia launched 248 assaults on Ukrainian positions on December 24, mentioned Ukraine’s normal employees, an unusually excessive quantity, adopted by greater than 200 assaults on Christmas day.
Throughout this time, geolocated footage advised Russian forces broke by 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 had been additionally ongoing for the Central Mine within the metropolis of Toretsk.
Probably the most intense preventing, nonetheless, appeared to happen across the city of Pokrovsk, the place 1 / 4 to a fifth of the Russian assaults came about.
“Pokrovsk is an important street and rail hub, facilitating the motion of troops and provides throughout jap Ukraine,” Demetries Andrew Grimes, a former US naval officer, aviator and diplomat, instructed Al Jazeera.
“Capturing Pokrovsk would disrupt Ukrainian provide traces and improve Russian operational capabilities within the transportation and distribution of provides throughout your entire entrance line,” he mentioned.
“The target is more likely 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 presumably capturing Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, which have industrial and financial websites which might be vital for Ukraine, presumably transferring in the direction of Zaporizhia alongside the N15 street from the Kurakhove pocket, which might additionally bypass numerous the Ukrainian defences, which face south,” he instructed Al Jazeera.
These assaults, whereas clawing away land, had been additionally expensive. Bobovnikova mentioned Russian forces had been dropping 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 employees 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 Research of Conflict, 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 isn’t going to be what determines this battle,” mentioned Keir Giles, a Eurasia skilled for Chatham Home.
“Within the financial and political domains, in Russia’s marketing campaign in opposition to Ukrainian crucial infrastructure and the methods for conserving folks alive by the winter, it’s also an image of Russia holding a bonus, significantly after the arrival of Donald Trump,” he instructed Al Jazeera, referring to Trump’s win within the US presidential election in November. Trump has mentioned that he needs to finish the battle instantly, and senior members of his group, together with Vice President-elect JD Vance, have advised that Ukraine would wish 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 a large air assault involving 78 missiles of assorted varieties and 106 Shahed kamikaze drones. Ukraine’s defences shot down 113 of the 184 targets, however many hit vitality infrastructure.
“In the present day, Putin intentionally selected Christmas for an assault. What could possibly be extra inhuman?” Zelenskyy mentioned in his night handle on the identical day.
“The targets are our vitality sector. They proceed to battle 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 methods from his NATO allies. On December 19, NATO Secretary-Normal Mark Rutte mentioned the alliance would talk about present the methods Zelenskyy has sought.
4 days later, Germany introduced a large new army assist package deal, 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 package deal had been two Skynex 35mm air defence batteries, and ammunition for all these air defence methods.
Subsequent 12 months, Ukraine is predicted 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 methods.
“Let Western consultants suggest to us … to conduct some sort 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 aspect prepared?”
Ukraine’s deep strikes
Ukraine additionally struck at Russian vitality 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 biggest refinery in southern Russia, pressured the plant to halt operations, The Moscow Instances reported.
GUR additionally revealed its saboteurs had been answerable for destroying an Antonov-72 army transport aircraft on the tarmac of Ostafievo airfield close to Moscow on December 12. Footage printed 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 had been saved. It claimed to have destroyed 65 fuselages of assault drones, in addition to engines, navigation methods, 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 gas for solid-state rockets. The gas from the manufacturing facility at Kamensk-Shakhtinsky was utilized in ballistic missiles, together with these fired into Ukraine’s civilian areas and energy crops, Ukraine mentioned.
Ukraine’s international intelligence service estimated that Russian refineries’ downtime elevated partly as a result of Ukrainian air strikes in 2024 to 41million tonnes from 36million tonnes final 12 months.
Zelenskyy instructed 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 in opposition to our folks,” he mentioned in his night handle on December 21. “Our defence is fully simply.”
The drone battle
Ukraine has prioritised the event of unmanned methods throughout the battle to avoid wasting manpower.
On December 20, Ukraine’s nationwide guard mentioned it had efficiently performed a floor operation in Kharkiv utilizing completely floor and aerial robotic methods.
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 had been going through a brand new risk within the type of Russian drones guided by fibre optics. The drones are resistant to 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 instructed ArmyTV that Ukraine was coming to grips with the brand new drones by capturing them down with Mavic drones or utilizing their propellers to chop their fibre optics, rendering them uncontrollable.
Ukraine is growing its personal fibre optic drone, the Black Widow Net 10, which its normal employees mentioned is within the ultimate levels of approval to be used.
Ukraine has been growing robotic and drone methods 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 night time.
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 completely from elements manufactured in Ukraine.
