Warring sides battle inside Russia as Moscow reports gains in Ukraine
Russia said on Monday its forces had made important gains in eastern Ukraine while continuing to fend off a new Ukrainian offensive inside the Kursk region of western Russia, where a second day of fierce fighting was under way.
Russia said on Monday its forces had made important gains in eastern Ukraine while continuing to fend off a new Ukrainian offensive inside the Kursk region of western Russia, where a second day of fierce fighting was under way.
The Russian defense ministry said its forces had captured the town of Kurakhove, 20 miles south of Pokrovsk, a Ukrainian logistics hub toward which Russian forces have been advancing for months.
The ministry said taking Kurakhove, which had held out for many weeks, would enable Moscow’s forces to step up the pace of their advance in Ukraine’s Donetsk region.
Ukrainian monitoring group DeepState, which tracks the front line using open sources, showed most of Kurakhove under Russian control. Ukraine’s Khortytsia group of forces said Russian forces continued to attack Kurakhove but the Ukrainian side was working to identify and repel Russian assault groups on that part of the front.
Ukrainian troops fire artillery in the Donetsk region on December 24, 2024.Ivan Antypenko / Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images fileBoth sides are fighting to improve their battlefield positions before U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, who has pledged to bring a quick end to the nearly three-year-old war, takes office on Jan. 20.
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