{"id":114836,"date":"2024-11-12T00:12:37","date_gmt":"2024-11-12T00:12:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/ukraine-russia-war-latest-50000-of-putins-forces-in-kursk-kyiv-says-the-independent\/"},"modified":"2024-11-12T00:12:37","modified_gmt":"2024-11-12T00:12:37","slug":"ukraine-russia-war-latest-50000-of-putins-forces-in-kursk-kyiv-says-the-independent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/ukraine-russia-war-latest-50000-of-putins-forces-in-kursk-kyiv-says-the-independent\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine-Russia war latest: 50,000 of Putin\u2019s forces in Kursk, Kyiv says – The Independent"},"content":{"rendered":"

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North Korean forces alleged to be among those stationed in Kursk, where Ukraine launched its incursion in August
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Ukraine<\/a>\u2019s forces are engaged against nearly 50,000 enemy troops in Russia<\/a>\u2019s Kursk region, president Volodymyr Zelensky<\/a> has warned.
Ukraine\u2019s top commander, General Oleksandr Syrskyi, insisted earlier on Monday that Ukraine\u2019s incursion into Kursk operation was still successfully diverting Russian forces from mounting heavier attacks on the eastern front \u2013 as he confirmed New York Times<\/em> reporting that Moscow<\/a> had assembled some 50,000 troops in Kursk.
\u201cThese tens of thousands of enemies from the best Russian shock units would have stormed our positions in the Pokrovsk, Kurakhiv or Toretsk directions, which would have significantly worsened the situation at the front,\u201d he said.
The Times<\/em> report, citing a US assessment, said Russia had built up the force in Kursk \u2013 where North Korean troops have reportedly been stationed in recent days \u2013 without needing to move troops from eastern Ukraine.
It came as Kyiv claimed Russia had suffered its deadliest day of the Ukraine war, alleging that Mr Putin\u2019s forces suffered record daily high of 1,770 losses as they continued their offensive in the east.
Donald Trump Jr took a swipe at Volodymyr Zelensky after sharing a social media post suggesting that the Ukrainian president was just weeks away from losing his \u201callowance\u201d \u2013 a reference to US military funding for fighting Vladimir Putin\u2019s.
President-elect Donald Trump has staunchly criticised the Biden Administration spending more than $64 billion in providing security assistance to Ukraine since Russia\u2019s invasion of the nation in February 2022, according to figures from the US Department of State.
On Sunday, Trump\u2019s eldest son mocked Mr Zelensky in a social media tirade, teasing that Ukraine\u2019s military aid budget was about to be abolished.
The outspoken political scion shared an Instagram post by former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, as per screenshots taken by the Daily Beast<\/em><\/a>, with the caption: \u201cPOV: You\u2019re 38 Days from losing your allowance.\u201d
Our US news reporter <\/em>James Liddell <\/em><\/strong>has more details in this report:<\/em>
President-elect\u2019s eldest son also called to keep \u2018neocons and war hawks\u2019 out of the Trump Administration
The European Union has supplied Ukraine with more than 980,000 artillery shells, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said.
A target to supply a total of one million shells would be reached \u201cvery soon\u201d, Mr Borrell told Ukrainian outlet European Pravda.
He said: \u201cI know that we made a commitment to reach this level by spring and we failed,\u201d adding: \u201cBut we can do it by the end of the year.\u201d
This coming winter will be \u201ca critical point\u201d in the war against Russia, a Ukrainian official has warned.
As Donald Trump\u2019s election win brings the prospect of talks to end Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine closer, Kyiv is battling to put itself in the strongest position for any negotiations, including by securing more arms and holding out on the battlefield.
A senior Ukrainian official said the next four to five months would be pivotal, signalling how Trump\u2019s return to the White House is focusing minds in Kyiv on a possible end game in the war.
\u201cThis winter is a critical point … I hope the war is drawing to an end. Right now we will define the positions for both sides on negotiations, the starting positions,\u201d the official told Reuters.
Leading Russia expert Mark Galeotti, has warned that Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine is unlikely to grind to a halt any day soon in spite of \u201cmassive\u201d losses for Moscow.
\u201cI think both sides are able just about to hold on,\u201d he told Sky News. \u201cThe Russians can\u2019t really continue quite at this rate indefinitely. But on the other hand, they have the economy for at least another year or two at something like this kind of tempo.
\u201cSo it\u2019s not as if this is a war which is going to grind to a halt any day soon, unfortunately.\u201d
Russian infantry groups could launch ground assaults in Ukraine\u2019s Zaporizhzhia region in a matter of days, a military spokesperson has warned.
The attacks \u2013 on a front in the south where fighting has been less active for months \u2013 could create a new pressure point for Kyiv\u2019s overstretched defenders, who already are on the back foot in Ukraine\u2019s east. Although it was unclear if they would involve a single offensive push or separate assaults, the spokesperson said.
\u201c[The assaults] could begin in the near future, we\u2019re not even talking about weeks, we\u2019re expecting it to happen any day,\u201d Vladyslav Voloshyn told Reuters.
Ukraine\u2019s allies should not prejudge how Donald Trump will handle the Ukraine conflict, France\u2019s foreign minister has said.
Mr Trump, who has repeatedly criticised the scale of Western financial and military aid to Kyiv, spoke in recent days with Vladimir Putin and advised him not to escalate the Ukraine war, both Reuters and the Washington Post reported, citing a source familiar with the matter. The Kremlin dismissed this as \u201cpure fiction\u201d.
\u201cFacing the speculation on what could be the positions or initiatives of the new US administration, I think that we absolutely should not prejudge and we have to give it time,\u201d Jean-Noel Barrot told the Paris Peace Forum.
However, Mr Barrot said any initiatives would have to ensure that Ukraine itself determined the timing and conditions for engaging in a negotiation process. In the meantime, he said, Western allies had to give Kyiv all the necessary means to push back invading Russian forces.
\u201cUkraine, and beyond that the international community, would have too much to lose if Russia imposed the law of the strongest,\u201d he said.
Britain\u2019s defence secretary John Healey has told MPs that the government \u201chas a cast-iron commitment\u201d to spending 2.5 per cent of GDP on defence.
He told the Commons: \u201cWe promised this in our manifesto at the election, the prime minister promised it at Nato in Washington in July and the Chancellor promised this in the Budget two weeks ago as well as announcing a \u00a33bn boost for defence spending next year to start to fix the foundations for our armed forces.
\u201cThis is on top of \u00a33bn each year for Ukraine.\u201d
He added: \u201cEveryone agrees that defence spending must increase to match and deal with the threats that we face and one of our very first acts as a government was to launch the Strategic Defence Review (SDR), which is working at pace to look at the threats we face, the capabilities we need and the resources we have available. This isn\u2019t just about how much we spend but it is how we spend it too.\u201d
Mr Healey said the SDR will come first before the government sets out the \u201cpathway\u201d to spending 2.5 per cent, adding that this will come in the spring.
Forcing neutrality onto Ukraine will not bring about a peaceful solution to Russia\u2019s war, Finland\u2019s foreign minister has warned.
Speaking in an interview with Reuters, Elina Valtonen poured cold water on using the \u201cFinlandisation\u201d model as a way of securing peace in Ukraine.
\u201cI\u2019m against it, yes. Let\u2019s face it, Ukraine was neutral before they were attacked by Russia,\u201d Ms Valtonen said on the sidelines of the Paris Peace Forum. \u201cIt\u2019s definitely not something I would be imposing on Ukraine. Definitely not as a first alternative.\u201d
Ms Valtonen questioned whether Russia could be trusted even if it agreed a deal and said forcing Ukraine\u2019s hand to accept terms against its will would tear down the international system.
\u201cI really want to avoid a situation where any European country, or the United States for that matter, starts negotiating over the heads of Ukraine,\u201d she said. \u201cA larger power can not just grab territory, but also essentially weaken the sovereignty of another nation,\u201d she said.
Threats of a renewed mass missile attack by Russia which saw air raid alerts issued across Ukraine today are reportedly believed to have been a Russian training exercise.
Bringing some relief to Ukrainians awaiting feared mass missile attacks ahead of winter, the Kyiv Independent <\/em>reported that the warnings that sounded on Monday after Russian bombers and fighter jets took off turned out instead to merely amount to a Russian training exercise, with the all clear given just before 9am local time.
But Ukraine\u2019s counter-disinformation chief Andrii Kovalenko warned: \u201cThe Russians are ready for massive strikes. There are enough missiles, they are accumulated at strategic aviation airfields and continue to accumulate.\u201d
\u201cAviation is also ready. Rehearsing the tactics of simulated launches by the Russians is also part of maintaining the readiness of aviation for action.\u201d
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