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Russia has recaptured half of the territory it lost to Ukraine in Kursk, a region central to Volodymyr Zelensky’s plan to defeat Vladimir Putin. A senior Russian commander from Chechnya said that an estimated 50,000 troops were pushing back Ukrainian forces, who either had to flee or “end up in the cauldron”. Well-connected Russian and Ukrainian military bloggers have been reporting since Saturday that Moscow’s troops have punched through sectors of Ukraine’s front lines in Kursk. Mr Zelensky has insisted that the situation has stabilised

Russian forces have made significant advances on the front line, capturing 5.5 times more territory in August and September 2024 than they did throughout all of 2023. This data comes from analysts at the UA War Infographics project, who shared their findings on Tuesday, Oct. 15. According to the report, in the first half of 2024, Russian troops were capturing up to 200 square kilometers per month at most. However, in August, they managed to seize 351 square kilometers, and by September, this number had increased to 468.

Russia has made sweeping advances in recent days that threaten to outweigh the gains made by Ukraine in its cross-border attack into the Kursk region. Russian forces are just a few kilometres from the Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, a crucial logistics hub used by the Ukrainian military. Home to a key railway station and major roads, Pokrovsk is an essential supply and reinforcement point for Ukraine’s troops on the eastern front line. Critics in Kyiv fear that the country's military has made a serious miscalculation.

Poland gave Ukraine everything it could. This was stated by the Polish Minister of Defense, Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz. The minister responded remotely to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, according to which “Poland's attention to Ukrainian defense capabilities has weakened somewhat” lately. “This means that Poland probably gave us what it could. However, some things remained in Poland,” the Ukrainian head of state said. "Today, we have donated all the things that we could have donated to Ukraine."

Media sources claim that Germany has suspended new military aid to Ukraine due to budget constraints. While existing commitments will continue, future support remains uncertain as Germany considers using frozen Russian assets under a G7 plan, as per FAS.

Germany has halted future aid to Ukraine amid Berlin’s budget struggles, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper reports. According to the FAZ report, all future requests from the Ministry of Defence for Ukraine aid will not be approved by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz as his leftist government seeks to cut costs to address the 12 billion euro budget shortfall. The paper said, however, that most of the money and physical aid already allocated to be sent to Ukraine will continue to be sent. This year, some 8 billion euros have been earmarked for Kyiv, while next year an additional 4 billion...

Germany has frozen its military aid to Ukraine, claiming that a domestic budgetary crisis means it can no longer afford to supply Kyiv with new weapons.Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, told his defence minister this month that there would be no money available for further military aid, according to a new report in the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper.Boris Pistorius, the defence minister, had written up a wish list for €4 billion (£3.4 billion) in additional military supplies to Ukraine, but a letter sent to him by the finance ministry made clear that no extra money would be freed up because of...

Pundits claim that if Donald Trump is re-elected, he will cut off aid to Ukraine, give away its territory, and deal directly with Vladimir Putin to impose an ignominious “peace” on the country. There’s no evidence that such capitulation will be part of President Trump’s policy and much evidence to the contrary. It was Mr. Trump who in 2017 lifted the Obama administration’s arms embargo on Ukraine, providing it with the Javelin missiles that helped save Kyiv in the earliest days of Russia’s invasion. More recently, Mr. Trump gave political cover to House Speaker Mike Johnson when he maneuvered to...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday he will put the finishing touches on an “action plan for peace” by the end of November. He added that he cannot discuss a ceasefire while Russian forces occupy Ukrainian territory. Zelensky touted his “action plan for peace” as an extension of June’s “Global Peace Summit” in Switzerland, which produced a communique calling for restoration of Ukraine’s “territorial integrity.” Representatives from 91 nations signed the communique, but Russia was not one of them. Russian President Vladimir Putin instead demanded Ukraine surrender its occupied eastern provinces to Russian control and abandon its plans to...

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – At least two people were killed and three more injured after a Russian missile strike on infrastructure in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, said Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said Saturday. Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials confirmed that the death toll following a Russian strike Friday on the city of Mykolaiv, had risen to four. A child was among the victims, said the city’s mayor, Oleksandr Sienkevych.

Ukrainian troops have lost a hard-won position on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River, near the southern city of Kherson, after months of bloody fighting to hold on to a piece of land in what some Ukrainian soldiers and military analysts have described as a futile operation. The Ukrainian military said on Wednesday night that fighting continued on the eastern bank but that most of the main positions in the village of Krynky, where its troops had gained a foothold, “were destroyed by intense, combined and prolonged enemy fire.” The statement came after several Ukrainian news media outlets reported...

The United Kingdom has clarified that it has not granted permission for Ukraine to use Storm Shadow missiles inside Russian territory, contradicting earlier statements. This clarification has created an awkward diplomatic moment for Sir Keir Starmer, as reported by The Telegraph. Downing Street stated on 12 July that the government’s policy “had not changed” regarding the deployment of the long-range missiles. The British Government has allowed Kyiv to fire the missiles against targets in Crimea and mainland Ukraine since their delivery last year but has banned their use against targets inside Russia due to concerns about escalating the war. Zelenskyy...

Russian forces have advanced along the front line in Ukraine, battlefield maps published by a U.S. think tank show, as Ukraine warns that Moscow is preparing for a major offensive in the east. Maps released by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a U.S.-based think tank, on Sunday, show that Russian forces have made progress in Ukraine's Luhansk and Donetsk regions, which together comprise the Donbas. The Kremlin has been pushing for the total capture of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions since Russia's initial invasion of eastern Ukraine in 2014. Newsweek has contacted the Russian Defense Ministry by...

The reform of Ukraine's General Staff will see a 60% reduction in the number of staff, with some of them being sent to combat units, Brigadier General Yevhenii Ostrianskyi, Head of the Main Department of Defence Planning of Ukraine's General Staff, has stated.

The Prime Minister, in his “state of the nation” speech this week, accurately stated that the world is a very dangerous place, and we must ensure that our defence capabilities are up to the task. He is right on the threat but has yet to grasp that one way to meet it is by investing heavily in our physical and psychological military conventional deterrence. The signs coming out of Moscow are far from encouraging, with Putin sacking his combat generals to replace them with “bean counters”. Presumably to ensure the economy is on a total war footing and capable of...

Russia looks set to seize the pivotal Kharkiv towns of Lukyantsi and Vovchansk after an abrupt Ukrainian retreat. The Ukrainian military said that the decision was made to avoid a potential bloodbath on the streets. One spokesperson told the AFP that it withdrew soldiers from the towns "in response to enemy fire and assaults from ground troops, and to save the lives of our servicemen and avoid losses".The head of Vovchansk police Oleksii Kharkivskyi shared an update from the besieged village this morning, saying: "Russians are taking positions on the streets of the city, the situation is extremely difficult, but...

“Russia launches a division sized recon in force operation 20 kilometers North of Ukraine's second largest city, Kharkiv.…”

There is a large Russian operation underway in Ukraine focused on the Kharkov area. At the same time, the Russians are also attacking elsewhere, primarily in Donbas but also in Zaphorize. The threat in the north has compelled Ukraine to pull troops deployed elsewhere, including Chasiv Yar, to try and hold the line in the Kharkov area. If Russia intended to force Ukraine’s army to move its troops northwards, then it looks like a success so far. These troop movements will offer the Russian army the chance to do more damage to Ukraine’s army.

Ukraine’s military is confronting a “critical” situation in the country’s northeast, facing troop shortages as it tries to repel a Russian offensive that has been advancing for several days, a top Ukrainian general said on Monday. Russian troops surged across the border last week to open a new line of attack near Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city after Kyiv, capturing at least nine settlements and villages and forcing thousands of civilians to flee. “The situation is on the edge,” Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, said in a video call from a bunker in Kharkiv. “Every hour...

Ukraine’s top general says the situation in the northern Kharkiv region has “significantly worsened” after Russia claimed to have captured four further villages as it expanded its surprise cross-border offensive. A Ukrainian regional official insisted Russia’s progress was not yet “significant” but admitted ground fighting in the area was spreading. Meanwhile, speaking on British television, UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron acknowledged it was an “extremely dangerous moment,” adding that Russia had effectively “invaded [Ukraine] again.” The precise goal of Russia’s new push – which began in the early hours of Friday morning – is unclear. It may be to create...