Russia lacks sufficient forces for a big breakthrough in Ukraine, NATO's Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, General Christopher Cavoli, said during a discussion on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos on Jan.

Ukraine launched a daring offensive into Russia's Kursk region, hoping to stretch Russia's resources and gain a new bargaining chip.

Since the new push in Russia’s Kursk Oblast in early January, Ukraine has made small gains and managed to capture the first North Korean prisoners of war in the area but experts have raised concerns about Kyiv’s use of limited resources while fierce battles rage elsewhere.

Russian forces have retaken 63.2% of the territory captured by Ukraine in the Kursk region of western Russia, the Russian defence ministry said on Friday.

The ongoing Kursk operation by the Ukrainian Armed Forces is an unprecedented endeavor as the aggressor state is forced to defend its own territory. — Ukrinform.

Ukraine is leaning into its efforts to hold onto the Russian territory of Kursk amid intense pressure from Russian and North Korean forces to take it back, apparently gambling that the region

“Russia occupies 18 percent of Ukraine, and Kursk is much, much smaller than 1 percent of Russia,” he said. “There’s a fairly significant differential in terrain held.

Ukrainian forces described a different kind of enemy, fighting with unfamiliar tactics and little option to retreat.

Operators of the 8th Regiment of the Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine killed 21 and wounded 40 North Koreans who were attacking Ukrainian positions in the Kursk region of the Russian Federation.

A thousand North Korean troops who have been fighting in the Kursk region of Russia have been killed in Vladimir Putin ’s war with Ukraine, officials have said. Western officials have told the BBC that 36 per cent of North Korean forces fighting in Russia had been killed, injured or captured by mid-January.