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.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
RSS