Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that some 38,000 Russian troops have been killed or wounded fighting in Russia's western Kursk region since August.

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.

Ukraine launches a new offensive in Russia's Kursk region, raising questions about its strategic goals and potential impact on the war's trajectory and upcoming peace talks.

Russia sent one of its top generals, General Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, to organize Russia’s defense in Kursk Oblast against a renewed Ukrainian attack, The Telegraph reported on Jan. 5.

Ukraine launched a fresh operation in Russia's southern Kursk region, Moscow said on Sunday, after Ukrainian officials and military bloggers reported new attacks from Kyiv in a region where Moscow is eager to reassert its grip.

Ukraine has largely been driven out of Kurakhove, a battered but strategic town in the Donbas, Russia said. Kyiv’s forces were pressing a renewed offensive in southern Russia.

Russian military commentators say they are ‘worried’ about the multipronged Ukrainian attack in the border region of Kursk

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday that Russia had suffered heavy losses in five months of fighting Ukrainian forces in southern Russia's Kursk region, with nearly 15,000 killed.

Ukraine's president told podcaster Lex Fridman that 3,800 North Koreans had been killed or wounded fighting alongside Russia but many more could come.

Ukraine's fresh offensive in Kursk comes nearly six months after Kyiv first sent troops into the western Russian region.

Russia's military is continuing to push further into Ukraine and recapture its own territory from Kyiv's forces. According to the D.C.-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW), Russian forces have advanced in Toretsk and near Kurakhove,