Kyiv launches new attack in Kursk; Russian reporter killed near Donetsk in drone strike

The Russian media outlet Izvestia said on Saturday that a Ukrainian drone strike killed its reporter near the city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine.

The pro-Russian breakaway Moldovan region of Transdniestria, left without Russian gas supplies no longer transiting through neighbouring Ukraine, faced longer periods of rolling power cuts on Saturday, said local authorities.

Ukraine launches new attack in Russia’s Kursk region

Russia said on Sunday that Ukraine had launched a new attack in the Kursk region, an area of western Russia from which Russian troops have been trying to eject Ukrainian forces for the past five months.

Ukrainian troops broke across the border in a surprise incursion on 6 August and have managed to hold on to a chunk of territory there which could provide Kyiv with an important bargaining chip in potential peace talks.

Russia’s defence ministry said its forces were beating back the Ukrainian forces but some reports from Russian military bloggers suggested the Russian side had come under heavy pressure.

Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office, posted on Telegram that there was “good news” from Kursk, adding: “Russia is getting what it deserves.”

Andriy Kovalenko, the head of Ukraine’s official Centre Against Disinformation, wrote on Telegram that Russian troops were attacked in several places.

The Russian statement said Ukraine attacked near the village of Berdin with two tanks, a mine-clearing vehicle and 12 armoured combat vehicles with paratroops.

“Artillery and aviation of the North group of [Russian] forces defeated the assault group of the Ukrainian Armed Forces,” it added.

The statement said two Ukrainian attacks had been repelled. Reuters could not independently verify the situation on the ground.

Reports from Russia’s widely read war bloggers, who support Moscow’s war in Ukraine but have often reported critically on failings and setbacks, indicated that the Ukrainian assault had put Russian forces at least temporarily on the defensive.

“Despite strong pressure from the enemy, our units are heroically holding the line,” the Operativnye Svodki (Operational Reports) channel said in the first hours after the attack.

In a later update, another influential blogger, Yuri Podolyak, said Russian units had gained control of the situation after initial “mistakes” and encircled Ukrainian forces north of a highway leading to the regional capital Kursk.

Acting Kursk governor Alexander Khinshtein told people to trust only official sources, and warned displaced residents not to return to unsafe areas without permission.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday that Russian and North Korean forces suffered heavy losses in fighting in southern Kursk.

Ukrainian and Western assessments say that some 11,000 North Korean troops are deployed in the Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces occupy swathes of territory after staging a mass cross-border incursion in August.

In his nightly video address, Zelensky quoted a report from top Ukrainian commander Oleksandr Syrskyi as saying that the battles had taken place near the village of Makhnovka, not far from the Ukrainian border.

“In battles yesterday and today near just one village, Makhnovka, in Kursk region, the Russian army lost up to a battalion of North Korean infantry soldiers and Russian paratroops,” said Zelensky. “This is significant.”

Zelensky also said “fierce battles” had raged along the entire 1,000km frontline, with the most difficult situation near the city of Pokrovsk.

A Ukrainian military spokesperson earlier said Pokrovsk remained the “hottest” frontline sector, with Russian troops launching fresh attacks near the town in an effort to bypass it from the south and cut off supply routes to Ukraine’s troops.

The city, home to a mine that is the sole supplier of coking coal to Ukraine’s once-giant steel industry, had a pre-war population of some 60,000 people. Ukraine estimates that around 11,000 of them remain in the city.

Russian reporter killed in drone strike in eastern Ukraine

The Russian media outlet Izvestia said on Saturday that a Ukrainian drone strike killed its reporter near the city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine.

“The Ukrainian army launched a drone strike on a civilian car carrying Izvestia’s freelance correspondent Alexander Martemyanov,” the daily reported on its Telegram channel.

“The car was located far from the line of contact.”

Izvestia said the car was travelling on a highway linking Donetsk, the Russian-held main town of the Donetsk region, and the city of Horlivka to the north.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, writing on her ministry’s website, denounced the incident as “deliberate murder”.

Data previously provided by the Committee to Protect Journalists counted at least 15 journalists killed since Russia’s February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Russia’s RIA news agency said two of its correspondents travelling with Martemyanov were injured in the incident, along with two journalists working for a local publication in Donetsk.

Moldova breakaway region faces extended blackouts after gas cutoff

The pro-Russian breakaway Moldovan region of Transdniestria, left without Russian gas supplies no longer transiting through neighbouring Ukraine, faced longer periods of rolling power cuts on Saturday, said local authorities.

Flows of Russian gas via Ukraine to central and eastern Europe stopped on New Year’s Day after a transit deal expired between the warring countries and Kyiv refused to extend it.

Transdniestria, a mainly Russian-speaking enclave which has lived side-by-side with Moldova since breaking away from it in the last days of Soviet rule, received gas from Russian giant Gazprom through the pipeline crossing Ukraine.

The gas was used to operate a thermal plant which provided electricity locally and for much of Moldova under the control of the pro-European central government.

The region’s self-styled president, Vadim Krasnoselsky, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said rolling power cuts in various districts would be extended to four hours on Sunday.

Hour-long cuts were first imposed on Friday evening after heating and hot water supplies were curtailed. The cuts were then extended to three hours on Saturday.

“Yesterday’s introduction of rolling cuts was a test. And it confirmed that an hour-long break to keep the electrical supply system operating was insufficient,” wrote Krasnoselsky. “The power generated is not covering sharply rising demand.”

All industries except those producing food have been shut down. The official Telegram news channel of the region’s separatist authorities announced the official closure on Saturday of a steel mill and bakery in the town of Rybnitsa.

Regional officials announced new measures to help residents, especially the elderly, and warned that overnight temperatures would fall to -10℃. Residents were told not to put strain on the region’s mobile phone network.

Moldova’s government blames Russia for the crisis and has called on Gazprom to ship gas through the Turkstream pipeline and then through Bulgaria and Romania.

Russia denies using gas as a weapon to coerce Moldova and blames Kyiv for refusing to renew the gas transit deal.

Even before the halt of supplies via Ukraine, Gazprom had said it would suspend exports to Moldova on 1 January because of what Russia says are unpaid Moldovan debts of $709-million. Moldova disputes that and puts the figure at $8.6-million.

Four Russian airports reopen after suspending flights

Russian airports in the cities of Kazan, Nizhnekamsk, Izhevsk and Perm, which temporarily halted flights on Sunday morning to ensure the safety of civilian aircraft, had resumed normal operations, said the aviation watchdog Rosaviatsia.

It did not specify a reason for the pause in flight arrivals and departures, but Russian airports have previously closed due to a risk of Ukrainian drone strikes in the area. DM