Russian troops in eastern Ukraine have captured the stronghold of Kurakhove after a monthslong battle, the Russian Ministry of Defense claimed on Monday, adding the wrecked town to the Kremlin’s list of conquests during the almost three-year war.
However, the Ukrainian force defending Kurakhove dismissed the claim while acknowledging that Russian forces were attacking urban areas.
“Measures to identify and destroy enemy assault groups that are trying to infiltrate our battle formations are underway,” the local military command said on Telegram.
Photo: The Ukrainian Armed Forces via Reuters
Russia’s claim came a day after its defense ministry said Ukrainian forces had pressed new attacks in Russia’s Kursk border region.
Ukrainian officials usually comment on major battlefield defeats only days after Russia announces them.
The inauguration in two weeks of US president-elect Donald Trump has brought a new element of uncertainty and triggered an apparent effort by both sides to establish battlefield gains before any possible peace talks.
Trump has not detailed his plans for accomplishing his goal of ending the fighting, but his presence in the White House is likely to significantly affect how the war plays out.
Kurakhove is a stronghold for the Ukrainian army on the eastern front line in the partially occupied Donetsk region. It has an industrial zone, a thermal power plant and a reservoir and sits on a highway between eastern and southern Ukraine.
In November last year, The Associated Press reported from the town that about 7,000 to 10,000 people likely remained there. Its prewar population was about twice that.
The town has been under relentless attacks from artillery, multiple rocket launchers, powerful guided bombs and drones that have shattered buildings.
Meanwhile, Michael Kofman of the Carnegie Endowment said in an assessment published on social platform X that there has been some cheering news for Ukraine.
“Ukraine is grinding down Russian forces. Russian gains are small relative to costs. There has been no collapse of the front,” Kofman wrote.
On the other hand, he said that “Ukraine is losing territory. The coldest part of the winter is yet ahead. The current theory of success is unclear, or what resources will be made available by the West in 2025.”
Russia has been driving westward in a slow and costly effort to capture all of Donetsk. Ukraine is short of troops on the front lines and is straining to hold back the bigger Russian army.
Russian forces are trying to close in on Pokrovsk, a key road junction and rail distribution center furnishing supplies to a broad span of the Ukrainian front line.
In 2022, Moscow illegally annexed the Donetsk and neighboring Luhansk regions, which make up the Donbas industrial area, together with southeastern provinces of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. However, Russian forces do not fully control any of them.
Ukraine is keen to get new Western military aid delivered quickly, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Sunday said he hoped more would be pledged this week at a meeting with Western partners in Germany.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
US president-elect Donald Trump is not typically known for his calm or reserve, but in a craftsman’s workshop in rural China he sits in divine contemplation. Cross-legged with his eyes half-closed in a pose evoking the Buddha, this porcelain version of the divisive US leader-in-waiting is the work of designer and sculptor Hong Jinshi (洪金世). The Zen-like figures — which Hong sells for between 999 and 20,000 yuan (US$136 to US$2,728) depending on their size — first went viral in 2021 on the e-commerce platform Taobao, attracting national headlines. Ahead of the real-estate magnate’s inauguration for a second term on Monday next week,
‘PLAINLY ERRONEOUS’: The justice department appealed a Trump-appointed judge’s blocking of the release of a report into election interference by the incoming president US Special Counsel Jack Smith, who led the federal cases against US president-elect Donald Trump on charges of trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat and mishandling of classified documents, has resigned after submitting his investigative report on Trump, an expected move that came amid legal wrangling over how much of that document can be made public in the days ahead. The US Department of Justice disclosed Smith’s departure in a footnote of a court filing on Saturday, saying he had resigned one day earlier. The resignation, 10 days before Trump is inaugurated, follows the conclusion of two unsuccessful criminal prosecutions
RSS