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Ukrainian forces have killed or wounded over 1,000 people North Korean troops According to Kiev and officials in South Korea, Russia sent them to fight them.
“According to preliminary data, the number of killed and wounded North Korean soldiers in the Kursk region has already exceeded 3,000 people,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr said. Zelensky said in his evening address on December 23.
South Korean intelligence put the number of North Koreans dead and wounded at 1,100 and said the North was preparing to send more troops. North Korea sent 11,000 troops to fight in Russia's Kursk region, which Ukraine counter-invaded in August.
North Korean troops were apparently not trained to deal with Ukrainian drones, which took heavy casualties. In one case, Ukrainian drone operators recorded a North Korean soldier accidentally shooting his comrade as they tried to shoot down the drone that was filming them.
They may have been trying to implement a tactic described in a notebook found on the body of a North Korean soldier.
“When detecting a drone, you must form a trio where the one who lures the drone keeps a distance of seven meters and those who shoot it keep a distance of 10-12 meters,” it says. “If the lurer stands still, the drone will also stop moving. At that point, the shooter will eliminate the drone.”
Ukrainian special operations forces said on Telegram that their 8th regiment had killed 77 North Koreans in Kursk and wounded 40 over three days, without specifying the location. A video collage released by the regiment shows drones targeting individual enemy troops. Their signal cuts off point blank, showing the moment the drones detonate.
Russian President Vladimir Putin was embarrassed by the first takeover of Russian soil since World War II and initially promised to push Ukrainian forces out by October 1.
As the deadline neared, his spokesman reversed the Kremlin's position, saying Ukrainian forces would be ejected “in due course.” Putin reinforced this ambiguity at an annual press conference on December 19. “I cannot and do not want to name a specific date when they will be knocked out,” he said.
Some analysts suggest this could signal a shift in the Kremlin's priorities, but Russia also appears to be making a concerted effort to improve its tactics in the run-up to Christmas Eve.
Oleg Chaus, a Ukrainian sergeant who fought in Kursk, said that while Russian attacks over the past month had been “chaotic” and “disorganized,” three units attacked in an organized manner and with air support on December 24.
“All servicemen from these three groups had very high quality ammunition. Each of them had disposable grenade launchers, they had night vision devices, they were carrying small assault packs,” said the sergeant from Ukraine's 17th Heavy Mechanized Brigade. “If one of these three groups was not destroyed, they would continue to move.”
These units appear to include North Korean troops.
Russia is creeping forward in Donetsk
Ukraine's other hot front – its eastern Donetsk region – saw increased fighting over the Christmas holidays.
Russia launched 248 attacks on Ukrainian positions on December 24, Ukraine's general staff said, an unusually high number. followed by more than 200 attacks on Christmas.
during this time geolocated footage shows Russian forces breaking through the western part of the town of Kurakhove, which they first entered in late October, completing its capture.
Anastasia Bobovnikova, a spokeswoman for the Luhansk Technical University, said fierce fighting also continued over the Central Mine in the town of Toretsk.
The most intense fighting, however, is around the city of Pokrovsk, where a quarter to a fifth of Russian attacks take place.
“Pokrovsk is a vital road and rail hub facilitating the movement of troops and supplies into eastern Ukraine,” Demetri Andrew Grimes, a former US naval officer, airman and diplomat, told Al Jazeera.
“Taking Pokrovsk would cut Ukrainian supply lines and improve Russian operational capabilities to transport and distribute supplies across the front line,” he said.
“The goal is probably to secure the rest of Donbass and Zaporozhye,” said Michael Jerstad, a land warfare analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
“This means the eventual capture of Slavyansk and Kramatorsk, which have industrial and economic sites that are important to Ukraine, the eventual advance to Zaporozhye along the N15 road from the Kurakhovsky Pocket, which will also bypass much of the Ukrainian defenses that face south.” , he told Al Jazeera.
These raids, while taking up land, are also costly. Bobovnikova said Russian forces were losing a mechanized battalion a week and a brigade a month in Toretsk.
In the 10 days between December 17 and December 26, according to the General Staff of Ukraine, Russia lost 17,400 soldiers, which means 52,200 per month. Russian recruitment capacity is believed to be no more than 30,000 per month.
Still, Putin sounded upbeat at his press conference. “We're not talking about advancing by 100, 200, 300 meters; our fighters are reclaiming territory in square kilometers,” he said.
The Institute for the Study of Wara Washington-based think tank estimated that Russia had seized 3,306 square kilometers (1,276 square miles) of Ukrainian land in 2024.
“The position on the front line is not going to be what defines this war,” said Keir Giles, Eurasia expert for Chatham House.
“In the economic and political realm, in Russia's campaign against Ukraine's critical infrastructure and systems to keep people alive in the winter, this is also a picture of Russia taking precedence, especially after the arrival of Donald Trump,” he told Al Jazeera. referring to Trump's victory in the US presidential election in November. Trump has said he wants to end the war immediately, and senior members of his team, including Vice President-elect JD Vance, have suggested Ukraine would have to cede territory currently held by Russia as part of the truce.
Russia demonstrated its command of the air on December 25 with a large-scale air strike involving 78 missiles of various types and 106 Shahed kamikaze drones. Ukraine's defenses shot down 113 of the 184 targets, but many hit energy infrastructure.
“Today, Putin deliberately chose Christmas to attack. What could be more inhuman?” This is what Zelensky said in his evening address the same day.
“The targets are our energy sector. They continue to fight for blackouts in Ukraine.
Five days earlier, on December 20, Russia fired five ballistic missiles at Kiev. Ukraine said it shot down all five, but falling debris hit a building housing several embassies. It was part of a wider night attack that included a sixth missile and 65 drones.
Zelensky has demanded an increasing number of defense systems from his NATO allies. On December 19, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said the alliance would discuss how to provide the systems Zelensky is seeking.
Four days later, Germany announced a massive new military aid package, including two Patriot air defense launchers – each carrying four missiles, two short-range IRIS-T SLS launchers and one medium-range IRIS-T SLM launcher. each carrying eight missiles.
Also included in the announced package were two 35mm Skynex air defense batteries and ammunition for all of these air defense systems.
Next year, Ukraine is expected to receive four more IRIS-T SLM batteries with three launchers each and three IRIS-T SLS launchers.
During his press conference, Putin challenged the West to a race between his new Oreshnik ballistic missile – test-fired against Ukraine for the first time on November 21 – and Western air defense systems.
“Let the Western experts suggest to us … to conduct some kind of technological experiment, say, a high-tech duel of the 21st century. Let them set some target for destruction, say in Kiev, concentrate all their air defense and anti-missile forces there, and we will strike there with Oreshnik and see what happens. We are ready for such an experiment, but is the other side ready?'
The deep blows of Ukraine
Ukraine also struck Russian energy and defense facilities.
On December 19, Ukrainian Military Intelligence (MII) said its saboteurs had set fire to “several” military refueling stations in Novosibirsk, destroying them.
On the same day, a Ukrainian drone attack on the Novoshakhtinsk oil refinery, the largest refinery in southern Russia, forced the plant to halt operations, The Moscow Times reported.
GUR also revealed that its saboteurs were responsible for the destruction of an Antonov-72 military transport aircraft on the runway of Ostafiyevo Airport near Moscow on December 12. Footage released on December 22 purportedly shows a drone strike at the Steel Horse oil depot near the city of Orel.
GUR said it hit a warehouse in Russia's Alabuga economic zone on Dec. 23 where parts for the Shahed-136 UAV were stored. It claims to have destroyed 65 attack drone fuselages, as well as engines, navigation systems and thermal imaging cameras for the production of 400 Shahed units.
On December 26, Ukraine's air force said it struck an industrial facility in Russia's Rostov region that produces solid-state rocket fuel. Fuel from the Kamensk-Shakhtinsky plant has been used in ballistic missiles, including ones fired at civilian areas and Ukraine's power plants, Ukraine said.
Ukraine's foreign intelligence service estimated that downtime at Russian refineries increased in part due to Ukrainian airstrikes in 2024. to 41 million tons from 36 million tons last year.
Zelensky told Ukrainians that the armed forces would continue this policy.
“We will certainly continue to strike Russian military targets – with drones and missiles, increasingly Ukrainian-made, specifically targeting military bases and Russian military infrastructure used in this terror against our people,” he said in his evening address on 21 December. “Our defense is completely fair.”
The drone war
Ukraine prioritized the development of unmanned systems during the war to save manpower.
On December 20, Ukraine national guard said it had successfully conducted a ground operation in Kharkiv using exclusively ground and airborne robotic systems.
The attack included attack drones with mounted machine guns, ground-based kamikaze drones and drones capable of mining and demining. A spokesperson who described the operation on the telethon also spoke of “large multi-rotor helicopters that can carry a large payload, such as an anti-tank mine, and FPV drones. All of this is supported and controlled by multiple carousels of surveillance drones. That is, we are talking about tens of units of robotic and unmanned equipment simultaneously on a small section of the front.
Russia also tried to keep up. Ukraine's armed forces have said they are facing a new threat in the form of Russian fiber-optic drones. Drones are immune to jamming by electronic warfare and have proven successful on the battlefield – including at Pokrovsk.
“We missed that moment with fiber optics, and frankly, we don't know how to deal with it,” said Ivan Sekach, a spokesman for the 110th Mechanized Brigade.
Special forces speaker told ArmyTV that Ukraine is beginning to deal with the new drones by shooting them down with Mavic drones or using their propellers to sever their optical fibers, making them uncontrollable.
Ukraine is developing its own optical drone, the Black Widow Web 10, which is its own general staff is in the final stage of approval for use.
Ukraine is developing robotic and unmanned systems at breakneck speed. Last week, its armed forces unveiled a new high-altitude battlefield surveillance drone. Shtedrik can fly beyond the range of most Russian air defense weapons and operates day and night.
Autonomy is also a top priority for Ukraine, and a Ukrainian drone company recently announced that it has assembled a prototype of the first FPV drone made exclusively from components manufactured in Ukraine.
