BBC Information
International Photographs Ukraine through Getty PhotographsUkraine’s prime army commander says its forces are nonetheless defending a small space of territory inside Russia that it captured nearly a 12 months in the past.
In August 2024 Ukraine launched a shock incursion into the Kursk area, capturing greater than 1,000 sq km (386 sq miles) of Russian land.
Ukraine’s commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrsky mentioned 10,000 Russian troops are trying to drive his forces again.
Whereas Russia has repeatedly insisted it had recaptured your entire area, Syrsky mentioned on Sunday that Ukraine remains to be holding round 90 sq km (56 sq miles) within the Kursk area.
Talking to reporters on Sunday, Syrsky vowed to extend the “scale and depth” of strikes on Russia.
“In fact, we are going to proceed,” he mentioned.
“Provided that we’re not preventing in opposition to the inhabitants, we’re preventing and destroying purely army targets.”
Ukraine seized dozens of villages within the Kursk area shortly after its incursion began on 6 August 2024.
President Volodymyr Zelensky mentioned the Kursk operation established a buffer zone which prevented Russian forces from being deployed in key areas of the entrance in jap Ukraine.
However, Kyiv’s advances stalled after Russia rushed reinforcements to the realm – together with hundreds of troops from its ally North Korea.
In current months Ukrainian forces have been in retreat in Kursk after facing 70,000 Russian troops and heavy drone assaults as a part of Moscow’s drive to regain the territory.
Final autumn, North Korea despatched an estimated 11,000 troops to Kursk to combat off the Ukrainian cross-border incursion.
Western officers instructed the BBC in January that at the least 1,000 North Korean troops in Russia had been killed in simply three months.
Earlier this month, the federal government in Pyongyang promised to ship hundreds of mine-clearing troops and builders to Russia’s Kursk area to revive broken infrastructure.
