Ukrainian forces have launched a major new offensive in Russia’s Kursk region, a region that Ukraine captured parts of over the summer but has, in the past couple of months, struggled to hold amid pressure from Russian and North Korean forces.
Ukrainian and Russian officials confirmed the offensive, but the sides offered varying accounts on the scale and efficiency of the new operation.
Andrii Kovalenko, the head of the Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation, said on Telegram that Ukrainian troops were working to attack the Russians in several directions, and Moscow was “in great distress” from the surprise offensive.
“Russia is getting what it deserves,” added Andriy Yermak, a top presidential adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in a brief Telegram post.
Ukraine’s General Staff of the Armed Forces has not officially commented on the Kursk offensive, nor has Zelensky or the Ministry of Defense.
Russia’s Ministry of Defense said in a post on Telegram that Ukraine launched an offensive Sunday morning Moscow time with two tanks, a mine clearing vehicle, and twelve armored combat vehicles with landing troops.
Russian officials claimed to have defeated the initial advance, though it said operations to repel the assault were continuing.
Russian military bloggers also confirmed that a major offensive was underway, with popular writer Rybar posting on his Telegram channel that Ukraine introduced into Kursk several formations that had been gathering in the Ukrainian region of Sumy, which neighbors Kursk.
Rybar claimed that Ukraine was concentrating its efforts from the city of Sudzha, which Ukraine captured in August, and further north toward the district of Bolshesoldatsky.
The offensive comes after Ukraine’s surprise August invasion of Kursk, the first foreign invasion on Russian soil since World War II, has petered out and come under heavy pressure from a Russian counter-attack supported by thousands of North Korean soldiers.
Ukraine has lost dozens of square miles of territory to the Russian counter-attack and has been on the back foot in the region for more than a month.
Zelensky has said Kursk was a major strategy in the war effort, with the aim to divert Russian troops from the main fighting in eastern Ukraine while also taking prisoners, destroying Russia’s military assets, and proving Moscow was undefended.
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