Faced with waves of counterattacks from nearly 60,000 Russian troops, Ukraine has lost more than 40% of the territory it once controlled in its August invasion of Kursk, Reuters reported, citing a member of the Ukrainian General Staff.
“At most, we controlled about 1,376 square kilometers (531 square miles), now of course this territory is smaller. The enemy is increasing its counterattacks,” the source told Reuters.
“Now we control approximately 800 square kilometers (309 square miles). We will hold this territory for as long as is militarily appropriate.”
Adding to Ukraine’s problems in Kursk is the presence of some 12,000 North Korean troops, Lt. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence Directorate, told us. In exchange for its support, North Korea is reportedly getting air defense systems and other military equipment from Russia, according to South Korea’s National Security Adviser Shin Wonsik. Energy shipments are also occurring. You can read more about that here.
Still, Ukraine continues to do what it can to hold Russian forces at bay. The following video shows another strike on a pontoon bridge Russians used to cross the Seym River. It was reportedly attacked with U.S.-donated GBU-39/B Small Diameter Bombs (SDB).
As we previously reported, Ukraine’s goal was to draw Russian troops into Kursk to alleviate pressure on forces in the country’s eastern region. However, that does not appear to have worked, with the Russians advancing across wide areas of the front lines in Ukraine. Towns like Kurakhove in the Donetsk region and Kupiansk in the Kharkiv region are especially in danger.
“The General Staff source said the Kurakhove region was the most threatening for Kyiv now as Russian forces were advancing there at 200-300 meters (yards) a day and had managed to break through in some areas,” according to Reuters.
In some places, Ukrainian troops are outnumbered six to one and are exhausted, allowing Russia to make its largest gains since the first weeks of the all-out war, The New York Times reported.
All told, Russia has about 575,000 troops fighting in Ukraine now, Reuters’ source said, and aims to increase its forces to around 690,000. Ukraine, meanwhile, is struggling with recruiting and President Volodymyr Zelensky has continued to avoid lowering the draft age to get more troops.
Russian President Vladimir Putin “wants to show that he will fulfill, as he said, the tasks of the so-called ‘special military operation’, occupy the entire Donbas, and he needs to push us out of the Kursk direction,” Zelensky said on Saturday. “He has these two tasks. This is the reason for our results: difficulties in the east. Yes, there is an insufficient number of Ukrainian Armed Forces there. Yes, Ukrainian units are understaffed there for various reasons, including the slow delivery of aid.”
You can see Ukrainians in Kursk coming under attack in the following video.
Ukraine’s struggles come as Donald Trump is set to return to the White House in two months. As we discussed at length, Trump has promised to quickly end the war, with some in his inner circle suggesting a freeze in the front lines as they are. That’s adding pressure on Ukraine to keep as much territory as possible both at home and in Russia, the latter for a bargaining chip. To do so becomes more difficult every day.
However, no concrete plan for Ukraine has yet emerged from Trump. Meanwhile, there are many in Ukraine who see positives in his election, because they’ve been frustrated by what they’ve seen as a slow rollout of needed equipment like tanks and F-16 fighters.
There is a confluence of events between the Kursk invasion and Trump’s inauguration, Zelensky posited.
“The most important thing for Putin is to push us out of the Kursk region,” Zelensky said. “And all these stories, all these demonstrative strikes with new missiles are not just for show. He has set this task. I am sure that he wants to push us out by January 20 next year,” Zelensky said.
More clarity should emerge in the coming weeks as the calendar ticks off to Trump’s return.
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Elsewhere on the battlefield, Russian forces continued to advance, especially west of Svatove, south of Chasiv Yar, south of Toretsk, northeast of Vuhledar, and northeast of Velyka Novosilka in Donetsk Oblast, according to the latest assessment from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
The news out of Velyka Novosilka is particularly bad for Ukraine, according to Ukrainian open-source investigator Andrew Perpetua .
In the wake of Russia’s aforementioned unprecedented strike on the city of Dnipro using a ballistic missile with multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) capabilities, officials in Kyiv opened up the flow of information about the weapon.
“Today, more details have been revealed about the new missile that Russia used to strike Dnipro,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on social media Friday. “These details will be shared with international journalists and media because the world must know the truth. It must understand that the only party that does not want peace is Russia. That is why Russia is constantly escalating.”
Zelensky’s statement came on a day when Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence Directorate (GUR) released a new assessment of the missile, offering previously unpublished details.
The missile reached a terminal velocity of Mach 11, or more than 8,400 miles per hour, and traveled 15 minutes from its launch site about 500 miles to the east, GUR claimed on social media. That lines up with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s claim yesterday that the weapon he called “Oreshnik,” was a non-nuclear missile with “hypersonic technology.” Hypersonic speeds are defined as anything above Mach 5. However, GUR indicated the missile was moving even faster than Putin’s claim that Oreshnik topped out at Mach 10, or about 7,610 mph at sea level, but that number decreases with extreme altitudes a ballistic missile flies at during different phases of its flight.
The missile contained six warheads with six submunitions each, GUR explained. The submunition part is likely lost in translations and could mean the explosive warhead in each reentry vehicle as opposed to six subventions on each one. Videos emerging on social media showed what appeared to be six warheads hurtling toward the ground and multiple impacts as a result. You can see one of those videos below.
Lt. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, GUR commander, said Russia only produced two of the missile variants that hit Dnipro.
GUR also provided details about the origin of the missile, listing a half-dozen companies it claims helped develop it.
The Oreshnik is based on the previous RS-26 Rubezh ballistic missile, the Pentagon said on Thursday. You can read much more about in our deep dive here.
Days before the attack, Telegram channels began posting information about a looming attack by the RS-26.
“Information appeared on the territory of the TG that, POSSIBLY, the Russians are preparing to launch the RS-26 from Kapustin (Astrakhan) in an experimental version,” the Ukrainian Donbas Operational Telegram channel stated on Wednesday, a day the attack occurred.
Donbas Operational even included a map in its post that showed the launch site location.
Shortly after that post, the Paratroopers Diary Telegram channel was one of many Russian channels to suggest that GUR put out information about the pending attack.
“Ukrainian intelligence has received information that today Russia plans to strike Ukraine with an experimental RS-26 Rubezh (Avangard) non-nuclear missile,” Paratroopers Diary claimed. The post included an image purporting to be the weapon on its launcher.
Ukrainian officials quickly pushed back on these claims.
“A terrorist country is conducting a massive information and psychological attack against Ukraine,” GUR stated on Telegram Wednesday. “A message about the threat of a ‘particularly massive’ rocket-bomb attack on Ukrainian cities today is being spread through messengers and social networks, allegedly on behalf of the GUR. This message is a fake, it contains grammatical errors typical for Russian information and psychological operations.”
GUR urged people to “trust information only from official resources and from the spokespersons of the Ministry of Education and Culture. The enemy, unable to subjugate Ukrainians by force, resorts to measures of intimidation and psychological pressure on society. Please be vigilant and persistent.”
As the rumors were swirling, the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv temporarily closed after officials “received information about a potential significant air attack on November 20,” the embassy announced. Several NATO allies followed suit.
A senior Ukrainian official said Russia was using the closures to stoke fear.
“In terms of information, now they are also trying to shake panicky moods against the background of the closing of embassies,” Andriy Kovalenko, head of Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation at the National Security and Defense Council, said on Telegram Wednesday.
Ukraine has been well aware that Russia was planning future attacks and stockpiling munitions to hit the nation’s power and heating infrastructure ahead of winter, Kovalenko noted.
“The Russians prepared for shelling in the cold season – this is their tactic,” he posited. “Rockets were stockpiled, aviation and fleet were being prepared. Bet on cruise missiles and ballistics, as well as drones for the depletion of air defense. These plans are not unexpected, they are known and warned about.”
A North Korean general was wounded in a Ukrainian missile strike on southwestern Russia’s Kursk region, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday, citing anonymous Western officials.
A day earlier, Ukraine fired at least 10 U.K.-supplied Storm Shadow air-launched cruise missiles at the Maryino estate, a site located around 32 kilometers (20 miles) from the front lines in the Kursk region, Western and Ukrainian officials said. It was the first use of those missiles inside Russia.
The Journal‘s sources did not reveal the North Korean general’s identity.
However, Ukrainian and South Korean officials previously told the newspaper that Pyongyang sent Colonel General Kim Yong Bok to oversee North Korea’s coordination with Russia.
Several Russian officers were also killed and wounded in that attack, a Ukrainian Telegram channel claimed.
“As a result of the strike, 18 servicemen were killed and 33 more were injured to varying degrees of severity,” the Dosye Shpiona Telegram channel claimed. “Among the wounded were three DPRK servicemen ( two men with serious injuries and one female medic with minor injuries). The wounded were taken to the Rylsk Central Regional Hospital. Most of the victims were officers from the Southern and Eastern Military Districts.”
Another 13 Russian sappers were injured in the aftermath of the attack as they worked on unexploded ordnance.
Contrary to many reports appearing online, there was no confirmation by Dosye Spiona that a Russian general was killed in the attack.
“It is also reported that at the time of the strike, the first deputy commander of the Leningrad Military District, Lieutenant General Solodchuk, was at the command post,” Dosye Shiona added. “There is no information yet about his condition.”
The War Zone cannot independently verify any of these claims.
The incident was reportedly captured by a Ukrainian drone unit, which you can see in the following video.
A spokesman for the French Foreign Ministry reiterated his nation’s position that there are no preclusions to the use of SCALP cruise missiles against targets in Russia.
“France’s view is clear. As President [Emmanuel] Macron said, there’s no red line on this. Ukraine has the right to defend itself against the aggression it has suffered from the Russians since [24] February 2022, and it’s in a situation of self-defense,” said M. Christophe Lemoine. “It’s a principle in keeping with public international law, it’s in the UN Charter. So it absolutely has the right to defend itself and must be able to do so.”
France fully supports Ukraine’s right to use SCALPs to strike Russia, he added.
“France has provided Ukraine with substantial military support since the start of the aggression. It has supplied various assets, including missiles,” the spokesman explained. “And once again, there’s no red line. It’s quite a clear point that President Macron reiterated recently.”
Zelensky said he plans to increase Ukraine’s production of long-range drones and missiles in its latest attempt to gain an edge over Russia.
Kyiv plans to produce some 30,000 long-range drones next year, along with 3,000 cruise missiles and “drone-missile hybrids,” reported the Kyiv Independent.
The announcement was made in a speech to Ukraine’s parliament on Tuesday just two days after President Joe Biden approved Kyiv’s use of U.S.-donated Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) short-range ballistic missiles to hit targets inside Russia. It came as Kyiv carried out its first strike with ATACMS on a military arsenal near the Russian town of Karachev in the Bryansk region, more than 70 miles from Ukraine’s border.
Before the Biden administration’s change of heart on ATACMS, Zelensky said that permission wasn’t enough. He told Fox News those missiles, along with SCALP-ER and Storm Shadows, are needed in greater numbers.
Long-awaited U.S.-made missile defense systems that the Canadian government helped to purchase have been delivered to Ukraine, Defense Minister Bill Blair said, according to the Canadian CBC news outlet.
Blair told the House defense committee Thursday morning that Ukraine now has the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAMS) Ottawa pledged $406 million for almost two years ago, the outlet reported.
“I can’t give you more information on that because of operational security, but we have been able to deliver at long last — and I think it’s going to make a difference because it will enable them to protect communities,” Blair told the committee.
Denmark donated another $138 million to help develop Ukraine’s arms industry, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said on Tuesday.
“And today I’m pleased to announce a new Danish donation to Ukraine. More than 130 million euros ($138 million) directly to Ukraine’s defense industry because we know now what your industry is capable of.”
The Presidential Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine posted a nearly three-minute-long video of Russian vehicles, many kitted out with so-called cope cages, being destroyed by the brigade’s drone units as they convoyed through the town of Velyka Novosilka in Donetsk Oblast.
“The entire column was completely destroyed, the equipment was burned to the ground,” the brigade claimed on Telegram. “Many occupiers were eliminated. Those who managed to escape from the hit equipment were finished off with mortars, FPV-kamikaze …and a machine gun on a drone.”
You can see a Ukrainian drone firing a machine gun in the following video. Given how much the muzzle moves as it fires, it is likely not very accurate, but as Ukrainian troops claim, lethal nonetheless.
Senior Lieutenant Vladyslav Stotskyi, a 25-year-old platoon commander in the 4th Brigade of the National Guard, recounts the horrors of being encircled with seven other soldiers by Russians for 67 days near Siversk in Donetsk Oblast.
In an interview with Ukrainian journalist Yuri Butusov, an emotional Stotskyi recalled firing his weapon, seeing his comrades wounded and trying to staunch the bleeding, and tossing grenades at the enemy.
“This interview is one of the strongest impressions for me in the war and in life,” Butusov said on Telegram.
Video emerged of a Russian Gerbera drone being used to overwhelm Ukrainian air defenses.
Russian troops came upon a fellow soldier in a burning vehicle hit by a Ukrainian drone. After examining the situation, they decided there was nothing they could do and kept on moving.
And finally, after being struck during a Ukrainian attack near Kurakhove in Donetsk Oblast, ammunition exploded in the turret of a Russian T-90 Breakthrough tank. That reportedly caused it to soar more than 600 feet into the air, shown in the video below.
That’s it for now.
Contact the author: howard@thewarzone.com