Ukraine launched a counterattack on Russia’s border region, with Zelensky telling allies to bolster their air defences

Ukrainian forces fired Counterattack in the western border Kursk regionWarning that Russia is “getting what it deserves.”

Although it was not immediately clear how much progress Ukraine has made in the region, the attack likely comes at a critical juncture. A struggle that lasted three years As the two sides seek to strengthen their negotiating position before the US President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House on January 20.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday that he would again call on allies to bolster his country’s air defenses at a Ramstein Group meeting in Germany this week.

He said dozens of partner countries would participate in the meeting, “including countries that can help strengthen our capabilities not only to defend against missiles but also against guided bombs and Russian aviation.”

“We will discuss this matter with them and we will continue to persuade them,” Zelensky said in his Saturday evening speech. “The mission has not changed: to strengthen our air defense.”

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin meeting that was originally scheduled for October and attended by President Biden. It was postponed due to Hurricane Milton, which struck the United States

In its last few weeks in office, the Biden administration pushed to send as much military aid to Ukraine as possible.

The Russian Defense Ministry said Ukraine used two tanks, dozens of armored vehicles and a destruction unit in Sunday’s attack, which was headed toward the village of Berdin, about 9 miles northeast of Sodja.

She added, “The process of destroying Ukrainian army formations continues.”

Pro-Kremlin military bloggers admitted that the Russian army was under pressure but said Moscow was resisting.

“It is clear that the main events of the next attack attempt by the Ukrainian army are still ahead of us,” the pro-Russian Raibar channel on Telegram said.

Ukrainian officials provided few details about the new attack, while one prominent lawmaker urged silence.

“I cannot understand why it is necessary to submit an official report on the Kursk region. Maybe it is better to do this later when the operation is over?” Ukrainian MP Oleksiy Goncharenko said:

Other officials expressed their happiness with this attack, which comes nearly three years after Moscow launched its large-scale military attack on Ukraine.

Ukrainian Presidential Chief of Staff Andriy Yermak said, “Russia is getting what it deserves.”

The head of the Ukrainian Center for Combating Disinformation, Andriy Kovalenko, said on the Telegram application that the defense forces are “operating” in the region, without going into details.

He added, “In the Kursk region, the Russians are very concerned because they were attacked from several directions, and this was a surprise to them.”

Kiev took control of dozens of villages in the Kursk region shortly after it began its incursion on August 6, 2024, but its advance was halted after Moscow sent reinforcements to the region, including thousands of troops from its ally North Korea.

A Ukrainian army source told AFP last November that Kiev still controls about 300 square miles of the Russian border region.

But Kiev has so far been unable to halt Moscow’s advance in Ukraine, which was seven times higher in 2024 than the previous year, according to an AFP analysis of data from the Institute for the Study of War.

Russia and Ukraine have exchanged attacks regularly since the beginning of the year.

Russia announced on Sunday that it had shot down dozens of Ukrainian drones overnight in an attack that damaged homes and triggered air warnings, while Kiev said that Moscow had launched 103 drones on its territory.

Four Russian airports briefly suspended traffic early Sunday for “safety” reasons, forcing at least eight planes to change course, a spokesman for Russia’s civil aviation authority Rosaviatsiya said.