Vladimir Putin’s troops have suffered 15,000 deaths and 38,000 total casualties during the five months of fighting Ukraine in the Kursk region of Russia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed yesterday.
“During the Kursk operation, the enemy has already lost 38,000 of their soldiers in this direction alone, with nearly 15,000 of these losses being irreversible,” Zelensky said in his nightly video address, but he did not provide any evidence to support the figures.
Ukrainian forces renewed their offensive inside the Kursk region in western Russia over the weekend, having first launched its surprise attack last August.
While not yet acknowledging the attack, the head of the Ukrainian presidential office, Andriy Yermak, said Russia was “getting what it deserves” there.
Since the start of the Kursk incursion, Russia has also lost over 3,000 pieces of equipment and vehicles, the General Staff of Ukraine‘s Armed Forces claimed. This reportedly includes 104 tanks, 575 armored vehicles, 12 multiple-launch rocket systems, a plane and three helicopters.
Zelensky’s announcement comes just a day after he said North Korea had lost more than 3,800 soldiers fighting in Kursk.
Ukrainian and Western predictions reveal that around 11,000 North Koreans are fighting alongside Russians in the region, the latter of which has not confirmed or denied their involvement.
While Ukraine has seized large parts of territory in the region since August 2024, Russia’s military says it has recaptured much of that.
When he becomes president on January 20, Donald Trump has pledged to end the Ukraine–Russia war “within 24 hours”, claiming his unique relationship with both Zelensky and Putin would allow him to broker a peace deal swiftly, bringing an end to the conflict.
The 78-year-old has not, however, provided specific details on his proposed strategy but has hinted at leveraging economic and geopolitical pressures on both nations.
As such, it is understood that Ukraine has launched a fresh attack on Kursk over the weekend to gain as much territory as it can ahead of possible peace negotiations.
Unverified footage circulated by Russian military bloggers shows several Ukrainian tanks and armoured personnel carriers heading towards the village of Berdin, a small area outside of what Ukraine currently controls in the region.
Zelensky also said that Ukrainian forces had created a buffer zone in the Kursk region, preventing Russia from directing “ all this strength to our other directions, particular[ly] to Donetsk, Sumy, Kharkiv, or Zaporizhzhia oblasts”.