Ukraine launches major new offensive in Russia's Kursk region

Ukraine launched a surprise new offensive in Russia’s Kursk region on Sunday, aiming to strike back after months under pressure ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.

The assault appeared to be a major effort to seize new territory in the area, where Kyiv's forces first swept across the border with a stunning incursion last August. Since then the Kremlin has retaken a chunk of its own land but struggled to fully expel the invading troops, even deploying thousands of North Korean soldiers in recent weeks.

Reports of the new offensive first emerged from the accounts of Russia's influential military bloggers early Sunday, before officials in Kyiv and then Moscow's defense ministry confirmed Ukrainian forces had launched a significant new effort to advance.

NBC News could not independently verify the claims.

“The Defense Forces are actively working,” Andriy Kovalenko, head of Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation, said on Telegram. “The situation in the Kursk region seems to be causing significant concern among the Russians, as they were unexpectedly attacked on several fronts.”

Andriy Yermak, head of Ukraine’s Presidential Office, also remarked, “Kursk region, good news: Russia is getting what it deserves.”

Hours later Russian state media quoted the country's defense ministry as saying that its troops had repelled two Ukrainian attacks in Kursk on Sunday.

"Overall, over the past 24 hours, the “North” group in the Kursk direction defeated the forces of 14 Ukrainian brigades and repelled two counterattacks," the defense ministry said, Russia's RIA state news agency reported.

The offensive follows months of setbacks for Ukraine.

Since the surprise incursion into Russia in August, the U.S. ally's military has been beset by low morale and manpower amid a barrage of Russian attacks.

Kyiv’s forces have largely resisted Russian attempts to expel them from Kursk, but they have been on the defensive as the Kremlin's military pushes to retake territory there and seize new land by advancing across the war's eastern frontlines.

The new Kursk offensive comes as Ukraine positions itself for the likelihood of Trump pushing for a peace deal with Moscow, which has raised fears Kyiv could be pressured into unfavorable compromises.

And while many Ukrainians want the war, now in its third year, to end, there are concerns that a truce could allow Russian President Vladimir Putin to regroup and launch further attacks when he deems it advantageous.

If truce negotiations are to take place, Ukraine wants to do so from a position of strength, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has remained dogged in his rhetoric.

Zelenskyy said in his nightly address Saturday that Russian forces had lost “up to a battalion of infantry, North Korean soldiers, and Russian paratroopers” in one day of battles in Kursk, the latest claim from Kyiv or its backers that North Korean troops have suffered heavy losses.

But the scale of Ukraine’s latest offensive in Kursk is still unclear.

Cautioning against premature conclusions, Mick Ryan, senior fellow for military studies at the Lowy Institute, noted it could take “perhaps 24-48 hours to have a good sense of what is occurring with this new offensive by Ukraine.”