Russia is stepping up a concerted drive to push invading Ukrainian forces out of a slice of Russian border territory within the Kursk area, British officers mentioned Monday, looking for to reverse an incursion final yr that proved extremely embarrassing for the Kremlin.
Moscow has been trying to push Ukrainian forces from the 115-square-mile salient by “sluggish, grinding advances” since Kyiv’s forces first seized the bottom in a shock August 2024 operation. Russia later deployed about 12,000 North Korean troops in October 2024 to help in repelling the incursion.
Nonetheless, Russian forces have made solely “gradual beneficial properties” to reclaim their territory regardless of the intensified marketing campaign, in accordance with the Institute for the Examine of Conflict. Russian troops have succeeded in “collapsing” the northern tip of the Ukrainian place, the Washington-based suppose tank reported.
Russian forces proceed to conduct fewer offensive operations elsewhere on the entrance line in comparison with late 2024 and early 2025, British navy officers mentioned Monday on X.
“Alternatives for Ukrainian counteroffensives have been improved by the lowered variety of floor offensives being carried out by Russia,” U.Ok. officers mentioned of their newest evaluation of the battlefield in Ukraine. Russian provide traces across the strategic Ukrainian crossroads metropolis of Pokrovsk within the disputed Donetsk area have additionally been severely degraded by enemy drone assaults, British officers mentioned.
Analysts with ISW mentioned the correlation between President Trump’s partial suspension of U.S. intelligence-sharing with Kyiv as he presses for a ceasefire and the beginning of Russia’s extra aggressive strikes in opposition to the Ukrainian Kursk place was “noteworthy.”
“Kremlin officers have lately introduced their intention to make the most of the suspension of U.S. navy assist and intelligence-sharing to ’inflict most injury’ to Ukrainian forces on the bottom throughout the restricted timeframe earlier than the doable future resumption of U.S. intelligence sharing and navy assist to Ukraine,” the ISW famous in its newest report on the combating in Ukraine.
Ukrainian officers see the occupied land in Kursk as a key bargaining chip in forcing Russia to withdraw from among the territory it now controls in Ukraine’s east and south.
