Ukraine Update…Day 1,037…New Ukraine Kursk push…..

• Russia says Ukraine has launched a new attack in the Kursk region of western Russia where Russian troops have been trying to eject Ukrainian forces for the past five months. Russia’s defence ministry said on Sunday its forces were beating back the Ukrainian forces but Russian military bloggers reported fierce fighting and some said the Russian side had come under heavy pressure. Ukraine’s general staff said 42 combat clashes took place on Sunday in the Kursk area, with 12 continuing. The head of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office, Andriy Yermak, posted on Telegram that there was “good news” from Kursk, adding: “Russia is getting what it deserves.” Russia’s ministry said Ukraine attacked around 0600 GMT near the village of Berdin with two tanks, a mine-clearing vehicle and 12 armoured combat vehicles with paratroops. It said two Ukrainian attacks had been repelled. The battlefield reports could not be independently verified.

• The Ukrainian army did not comment on the operation, simply saying in its daily report that fighting was under way in the Kursk region without elaborating. Zelenskyy said on Saturday that in two days of battles near the Kursk village of Makhnovka, “the Russian army lost up to a battalion of North Korean infantry soldiers and Russian paratroops”. Ukraine launched a cross-border raid into the Kursk region last August and Russia’s army has since recaptured only about 40% of lost territory. Ukraine’s new offensive comes as both sides seek to strengthen their negotiating hand ahead of US president-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House on 20 January, with Zelenskyy hinting that land around Kursk could play a part in any peace deal.

• Zelenskyy said security guarantees for Kyiv to end Russia’s war would only be effective if the US provides them, and that he hoped to meet Trump soon after his inauguration. He said Ukrainians were counting on Trump to force Moscow to end its war and that Russia would escalate in Europe if Washington were to quit the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) military alliance. In an interview with US podcaster Lex Fridman published on Sunday, the Ukrainian president also renewed his call for Ukraine’s Nato membership.

• The International Atomic Energy Agency reported hearing loud blasts near Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant on Sunday, coinciding with reports of a drone attack on the plant’s training centre, the head of the nuclear watchdog said. It had not yet been able to confirm any impact, Rafael Mariano Grossi said, adding that reports said there were no casualties or impact on equipment.

• One person was killed and another wounded in Russian shelling of the city of Nikopol in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region on Sunday, local officials said. Downstream along the Dnipro River, at least six people were wounded when Russian troops shelled the city of Kherson, the Kherson region’s capital. Moscow sent 103 drones into Ukraine overnight to Sunday, Ukrainian officials said, with Ukraine’s air force saying 61 drones were destroyed and 42 lost, likely due to electronic jamming. Russia’s defence ministry said 61 Ukrainian drones were shot down in western Russia. No casualties were reported but Rostov’s regional governor, Yuri Slyusar, said residential buildings and cars were damaged by falling drone debris.

• Dozens of sea mammals have been found dead since last month’s Russian oil tanker spill in the Black Sea, a dolphin rescue centre said as authorities raced to contain the disaster. The spill began on 15 December, when two ageing Russian tankers were caught in a storm off the Kerch Strait linking Crimea to southern Russia. One sank and the other ran aground, pouring about 2,400 tonnes of a heavy fuel oil into the surrounding waters, authorities estimate. Russia’s Delfa centre, which rescues and rehabilitates dolphins, said on Sunday it had recorded 61 dead cetaceans – a type of aquatic mammal that includes whales, dolphins and porpoises – since the incident….

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Ukrainian forces resumed offensive operations in at least three areas within the Ukrainian salient in Kursk Oblast and made tactical advances on January 5.