(Reuters) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday that Russia had suffered heavy losses in five months of fighting Ukrainian forces in southern Russia’s Kursk region, with nearly 15,000 killed.
“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,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.
Zelenskiy, in his remarks, offered no proof of the figures he quoted for Russian losses.
Ukraine launched a mass incursion into the Kursk region in August and has seized chunks of territory, though Russia’s military has said it has recaptured much of that.
Ukraine said it launched a new offensive in the region on Sunday, but has given few details.
Ukrainian and Western assessments say some 11,000 North Korean troops are fighting alongside Russian forces in the region. Russia has neither confirmed nor denied their presence.
Russia’s defence ministry said on Monday that the Ukrainian advance had been foiled and the main force had been destroyed near the settlement of Berdin, close to a road running northeast toward the city of Kursk.
The ministry said Russian forces had made important gains in eastern Ukraine, including the capture of the town of Kurakhove.
Zelenskiy made no mention of Kurakhove in his remarks.
He said Ukraine’s forces had established a buffer zone in Kursk region, where Russia had transferred strong military units, and that had prevented Moscow from deploying those forces to key frontline areas in eastern Ukraine.
“Importantly, the occupiers cannot now direct all this force to our other directions, particular to the Donetsk region, Sumy, Kharkiv region or Zaporizhzhia,” he said.
(Reporting by Ron Popeski and Oleksandr Kozhukhar; Editing by Chris Reese and Bill Berkrot)
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