Russia intensifies assaults in Kursk and eastern front, Ukraine says

Moscow has intensified its attacks on Ukrainian forces battling to hold an enclave in Russia's Kursk region and increased pressure in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region, Ukraine's top army commander said on Tuesday. 

As the war approaches its third year, Ukrainian troops are weary and outnumbered along the 1,170-km (727-mile) frontline.

"For the third day the enemy is conducting intensive assaults in the Kursk region," Oleksandr Syrskyi told government and regional officials in an online speech. He added that Russia was "actively" using North Korean troops who were taking significant losses.

A US military official said North Korean troops had suffered several hundred casualties in Kursk region, and their ranks had ranged from lower-level troops to "very near the top".

Ukraine's military said in an late evening report that its forces had repelled 42 Russian attacks in Kursk region. An earlier report said the number of combat clashes had risen to 68 over 24 hours, up from a daily tally of around 40 last week.

Ukraine launched an incursion into Kursk region in August, but has since lost more than 40 per cent of the territory it controlled.

Military analysts say the incursion has extended an already long front line, adding more strain on the Ukrainian troops.

Syrskyi said fighting was also escalating in the eastern Donetsk region where Russian forces were advancing at their fastest pace this year. He told government and regional officials that Russian troops continued to focus their assaults on the logistical centres of Pokrovsk and Kurakhove.

Russia's Defence Ministry said its forces had captured the village of Hannivka, north of Pokrovsk, the site of Ukraine's only colliery that produces coking coal for the steel industry.

Ukraine's popular military blog, Deep State, also reported that Russian troops were in control of Hannivka.

The Ukrainian military's general staff made no mention of the village, but said in a late night report that its forces had repelled 23 of 35 Russian attacks in the area.

Further northeast in Toretsk, under Russian attack for weeks, Russian forces were sending waves of soldiers against Ukrainian troops defending a coal mine, Anastasia Bobovnikova, a military spokesperson, told national television.

The escalation in fighting comes ahead of US President-elect Donald Trump's return to the White House next month. Trump said on Monday that Ukraine should be prepared to make a deal with Russia to bring the nearly three-year-old war to an end.

Trump's incoming Ukraine envoy will travel to Kyiv and other European capitals in early January, according to two sources with knowledge of the trip's planning.