The situation at a glance: Despite the cold: Heavy fighting in the east of Ukraine

The fronts of Ukraine have again been rocked by heavy fighting with artillery support. In its evening situation report, the General Staff in Kiev listed a total of 214 battles on the various sectors of the front. The focus was once again on the regions around Pokrovsk and Kurakhove on the edge of Donbass, where Russian troops had made major gains in territory with mass attacks in recent days. Both sides contradicted each other in their reports, so that an independent view of the exact course of the front was not possible. “The situation there is and remains serious,” said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

The military blog “DeepState” reported that the Ukrainian armed forces had at least restored their position near Kolisnykivka in the Kharkiv region.

The Ukrainian-occupied sections of the western Russian Kursk region were once again heavily contested. Russian troops tried to retake the areas occupied by Ukrainian units since the summer. According to Ukrainian reports, the North Korean soldiers integrated into the Russian units suffered heavy losses for the first time.

The Ukrainian unit “Madjar” deployed there published a video recording from a reconnaissance drone on the X platform, which shows soldiers’ corpses lying side by side in the snow. According to the depiction of “Madjar”, North Korean soldiers gathered their fallen comrades at a section of the front after heavy fighting. No independent confirmation of this was available.

North Korea is supporting the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine with around 10,000 soldiers who, after a short training period, were transferred to the front near Kursk with new weapons and equipment.

Ukrainian military destroys Russian supply train

According to their own account, Ukrainian commandos destroyed a Russian supply train together with artillery and drones. When the rails in the Zaporizhzhia region were blown up, the train, which consisted of 40 tank wagons, was forced to stop on the open track. The locomotive and the last wagon were then attacked with long-range rocket artillery before combat drones attacked the remaining wagons and set them on fire.

As Ukrainian media further reported, citing the military intelligence service HUR, this attack not only interrupted the supply of fuel to Russian troops. In addition, an important rail supply route for the Russian military was put out of operation for a long period of time. The “Ukrainskaya Pravda” published a video from a reconnaissance drone on the X platform, which, according to the paper, shows the attack on the train.

Ukrainian media also reported an attack on railway tracks in the Russian city of Ulyanovsk on the Volga. The Ulyanovsk regional administration dismissed corresponding reports on social media as “fake”.

Moscow criticizes Berlin’s Ukraine course and the German ambassador

Meanwhile, the Russian Foreign Ministry criticized the German ambassador in Moscow, Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, for his calls for peace as representing the federal government’s policy. Count Lambsdorff should direct his appeals to the West and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Sakharova wrote on her Telegram channel. “The direct responsibility for the deaths of the people lies with the collective West, which stimulates the continuation of the bloodshed with arms deliveries.”

The scolding was triggered by Lambsdorff’s statements at a Christmas concert in Moscow in front of several hundred spectators. There he had declared his hope for peace.

Russian President Vladimir Putin began the invasion of Ukraine almost three years ago with a massive missile attack on the neighboring country. Since then, hundreds of cities and towns in Ukraine have been destroyed. It is estimated that tens of thousands of people, including many civilians, were killed.

Many war crimes, especially those committed by the Russian army, have been documented. Nevertheless, the Kremlin blames the violence solely on Ukraine, which it attacked, and the West. Sakharova also stated once again that Kiev had blocked the peace negotiations. Russia appears willing to talk to the outside world, but sets conditions for peace negotiations that come close to Ukraine’s capitulation.