The Russia-Ukraine War Intensifies, With Drone Attacks, Foreign Troops and Record Losses
The war between Russia and Ukraine is escalating.
The neighbors this weekend launched their largest drone attacks against each other since the start of the war nearly three years ago. Russia last week began a fresh effort to oust Ukrainian forces from its Kursk region after amassing more than 50,000 troops, including some 10,000 soldiers from North Korea. And Russian troops, while advancing steadily in Ukraine’s east, are incurring record numbers of dead and injured, according to the British military’s top commander.
The surge in fighting comes as President-elect Donald Trump is promising to end the war but has yet to say how. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he is ready for peace talks but only if his earlier demands for Ukraine to submit to Russia’s control are met. His army is gaining momentum across the front line thanks to its greater size and quantity of weapons. Ukraine is holding on grimly at the front—and launching strikes deep into Russia.
Ukrainians are worried that the incoming Trump administration’s desire to end the war could leave their country with the short end of any peace deal, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky hopes Trump would leverage U.S. power to help its troubled ally.
“It’s only logical the two sides are trying to make whatever gains they can at the moment if there is a chance for any potential peace talks in the offing,” said Ruslan Pukhov, head of a Moscowbased defense think tank, the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies. “While Russia is trying to make gains on the ground, Ukraine’s best chance of response is through drone attacks.”
In the early hours of Sunday, both sides launched record numbers of aerial drones against each other. Russia said it shot down 84 Ukrainian craft deep in Russian territory, nearly half of them in the Moscow region. Three airports around the capital temporarily rerouted flights because of the wave of drones.
Zelensky, meanwhile, said Russia launched 145 Iranian attack drones across Ukraine. He said Russia had used more than 800 guided aerial bombs, 600 drones and 20 missiles against Ukraine last week.
On the front lines, particularly in Ukraine’s east, Russia is advancing slowly but steadily. Russian troops seized almost 200 square miles of Ukrainian territory last month, according to a Ukrainian war-monitoring group, DeepState, which said it was the largest monthly gain this year.
Meanwhile, some 10,000 North Korean soldiers have been deployed to Russia’s Kursk region to bolster Russian efforts to dislodge the Ukrainian troops who have occupied the territory since an August incursion across the border.
Ukrainian officials said last week that they had struck North Korean forces there for the first time, but that they weren’t yet involved in front-line fighting. The U.S. is still assessing how integrated North Korean forces are into the Russian military, a U.S. official said, including what kind of weapons the North Korean soldiers have been provided and how closely they are working alongside their Russian counterparts.
The U.S. is also still determining the source of these soldiers from within the North Korean military and how much training they have received, the official said.
Russia has already begun to chew into territory held by Ukraine in the Kursk region. Last week, Russian forces launched a counteroffensive after gathering weapons and troops, according to a Ukrainian official and a military analyst.
“Everything was already amassed a few weeks ago, the reserves were drawn up, and lots of equipment with personnel, too,” said Lt. Andriy Kovalenko, head of the Center for Countering Disinformation at Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council.
“They’re not just preparing, they’re already implementing,” said Roman Pohoriliy, co-founder of DeepState.
So far, Ukraine has largely been able to hold back the Russians, who are relying on infantry for their assaults, and take out some equipment, but Russia is seeking to press its advantage.
Analysts expect Russia’s military will be able to continue grinding forward in coming months, but won’t be able to make a significant breakthrough.
Russia has been losing troops on high-risk offensives faster than it recruits them. The U.K.’s chief of defense staff told the BBC on Saturday that October was the worst month for Russian casualties, which occurred at a rate of 1,500 a day for a monthly tally of 46,500. The U.S. said earlier this month that Russian recruiting was down slightly from previous months to about 25,000 to 30,000 soldiers a month.
Moscow has plugged some holes in its troop numbers through the deployment of North Korean soldiers, giving the Kremlin room to avoid any broader mobilization of Russians, though those soldiers are unlikely to have any long-lasting effect unless further deployments follow.
Ukraine, however, is facing even steeper manpower problems.
Along with the shortage of infantry, Kyiv is facing the possibility that the U.S., its best-sourced backer, will turn off the tap on military aid. This would leave Ukraine vulnerable both on the front line and in the rear, where U.S.-provided air-defense munitions are a precious resource in the face of Russian bombardments.
The Biden administration has been issuing assurances that, at least for now, the U.S. has Ukraine’s back. The U.S. has approved its specialists working on Ukrainian soil to help service weapons, Zelensky said in a nightly address on Sunday. On CBS’s “Face the Nation,” White House national-security adviser Jake Sullivan said Sunday that the U.S. would spend “on time and in full” all of the aid allotted to Ukraine last year before President Biden leaves office on Jan. 20.
Sullivan said that Biden would also be arguing before Congress and the incoming Trump administration that the U.S. “should not walk away from Ukraine.”
Ukraine has worked to address fears of the U.S. withdrawing aid by increasing the manufacture of domestic weapons, a change that has become a headache for Russia as those munitions hit faraway targets previously out of reach.
This week, Ukraine struck Russian naval vessels in the Caspian Sea for the first time. The small, landlocked body of water serves as the primary trading channel between Russia and Iran and an occasional launch site for Russian missiles. At roughly 1,000 miles from Ukraine, the attack is threatening Russia in an area it had considered safe.
Ukraine is now making its own shells and cannons, and an arsenal of its own drones, Zelensky said recently. Ukraine has manufactured more than 100 missiles this year, reaching that level for the first time.
“We will scale this up,” Zelensky said
Thomas Grove
The neighbors this weekend launched their largest drone attacks against each other since the start of the war nearly three years ago. Russia last week began a fresh effort to oust Ukrainian forces from its Kursk region after amassing more than 50,000 troops, including some 10,000 soldiers from North Korea. And Russian troops, while advancing steadily in Ukraine’s east, are incurring record numbers of dead and injured, according to the British military’s top commander.
The surge in fighting comes as President-elect Donald Trump is promising to end the war but has yet to say how. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he is ready for peace talks but only if his earlier demands for Ukraine to submit to Russia’s control are met. His army is gaining momentum across the front line thanks to its greater size and quantity of weapons. Ukraine is holding on grimly at the front—and launching strikes deep into Russia.
Ukrainians are worried that the incoming Trump administration’s desire to end the war could leave their country with the short end of any peace deal, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky hopes Trump would leverage U.S. power to help its troubled ally.
“It’s only logical the two sides are trying to make whatever gains they can at the moment if there is a chance for any potential peace talks in the offing,” said Ruslan Pukhov, head of a Moscowbased defense think tank, the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies. “While Russia is trying to make gains on the ground, Ukraine’s best chance of response is through drone attacks.”
In the early hours of Sunday, both sides launched record numbers of aerial drones against each other. Russia said it shot down 84 Ukrainian craft deep in Russian territory, nearly half of them in the Moscow region. Three airports around the capital temporarily rerouted flights because of the wave of drones.
Zelensky, meanwhile, said Russia launched 145 Iranian attack drones across Ukraine. He said Russia had used more than 800 guided aerial bombs, 600 drones and 20 missiles against Ukraine last week.
On the front lines, particularly in Ukraine’s east, Russia is advancing slowly but steadily. Russian troops seized almost 200 square miles of Ukrainian territory last month, according to a Ukrainian war-monitoring group, DeepState, which said it was the largest monthly gain this year.
Meanwhile, some 10,000 North Korean soldiers have been deployed to Russia’s Kursk region to bolster Russian efforts to dislodge the Ukrainian troops who have occupied the territory since an August incursion across the border.
Ukrainian officials said last week that they had struck North Korean forces there for the first time, but that they weren’t yet involved in front-line fighting. The U.S. is still assessing how integrated North Korean forces are into the Russian military, a U.S. official said, including what kind of weapons the North Korean soldiers have been provided and how closely they are working alongside their Russian counterparts.
The U.S. is also still determining the source of these soldiers from within the North Korean military and how much training they have received, the official said.
Russia has already begun to chew into territory held by Ukraine in the Kursk region. Last week, Russian forces launched a counteroffensive after gathering weapons and troops, according to a Ukrainian official and a military analyst.
“Everything was already amassed a few weeks ago, the reserves were drawn up, and lots of equipment with personnel, too,” said Lt. Andriy Kovalenko, head of the Center for Countering Disinformation at Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council.
“They’re not just preparing, they’re already implementing,” said Roman Pohoriliy, co-founder of DeepState.
So far, Ukraine has largely been able to hold back the Russians, who are relying on infantry for their assaults, and take out some equipment, but Russia is seeking to press its advantage.
Analysts expect Russia’s military will be able to continue grinding forward in coming months, but won’t be able to make a significant breakthrough.
Russia has been losing troops on high-risk offensives faster than it recruits them. The U.K.’s chief of defense staff told the BBC on Saturday that October was the worst month for Russian casualties, which occurred at a rate of 1,500 a day for a monthly tally of 46,500. The U.S. said earlier this month that Russian recruiting was down slightly from previous months to about 25,000 to 30,000 soldiers a month.
Moscow has plugged some holes in its troop numbers through the deployment of North Korean soldiers, giving the Kremlin room to avoid any broader mobilization of Russians, though those soldiers are unlikely to have any long-lasting effect unless further deployments follow.
Ukraine, however, is facing even steeper manpower problems.
Along with the shortage of infantry, Kyiv is facing the possibility that the U.S., its best-sourced backer, will turn off the tap on military aid. This would leave Ukraine vulnerable both on the front line and in the rear, where U.S.-provided air-defense munitions are a precious resource in the face of Russian bombardments.
The Biden administration has been issuing assurances that, at least for now, the U.S. has Ukraine’s back. The U.S. has approved its specialists working on Ukrainian soil to help service weapons, Zelensky said in a nightly address on Sunday. On CBS’s “Face the Nation,” White House national-security adviser Jake Sullivan said Sunday that the U.S. would spend “on time and in full” all of the aid allotted to Ukraine last year before President Biden leaves office on Jan. 20.
Sullivan said that Biden would also be arguing before Congress and the incoming Trump administration that the U.S. “should not walk away from Ukraine.”
Ukraine has worked to address fears of the U.S. withdrawing aid by increasing the manufacture of domestic weapons, a change that has become a headache for Russia as those munitions hit faraway targets previously out of reach.
This week, Ukraine struck Russian naval vessels in the Caspian Sea for the first time. The small, landlocked body of water serves as the primary trading channel between Russia and Iran and an occasional launch site for Russian missiles. At roughly 1,000 miles from Ukraine, the attack is threatening Russia in an area it had considered safe.
Ukraine is now making its own shells and cannons, and an arsenal of its own drones, Zelensky said recently. Ukraine has manufactured more than 100 missiles this year, reaching that level for the first time.
“We will scale this up,” Zelensky said
Thomas Grove