Ukrainian forces have launched a major new offensive in Russia’s Kursk region, a region that Ukraine captured parts of over the summer but has, in the past couple of months, struggled to hold amid pressure from Russian and North Korean forces.

Ukrainian forces launched an offensive in Russia's Kursk Oblast on the night of 4-5 January. Source: Andrii Yermak, Head of the Ukrainian President's Office; Radio Liberty's Russian Service; Meduza, a Latvia-based Russian media outlet,

Dozens of partner countries will participate in the meeting of the Ramstein group at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, Ukraine's president says, and he will press for aid.

Russian forces continue to make costly but consistent gains in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine. They are steadily grinding down a pocket of resistance around the town of Kurakhove in the southern Donbas region and are also fighting to envelop the larger city of Pokrovsk to the north, Ukrainian soldiers and officials said.

In a short post on Telegram, Andrii Yermak, the head of Ukraine's presidential office, said: "Kursk, good news, Russia is getting what it deserves."

On the night of January 5, russia launched 103 Shahed strike drones and simulator drones of various types over Ukraine. Of these, 61 were shot down, another 42

Ukraine has launched a counterattack in the southern Russian border region of Kursk, warning that Russia is “getting what it deserves.”

Russian state newspaper Izvestia says one of its freelance reporters has been killed in a drone strike near the Russian-occupied city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine. Moscow has accused Ukraine's military of deliberately targeting Alexander Martemyanov.

Russian forces launched 103 drones from three directions towards Ukraine on the night of January 5. Air defense shot down more than half of them, according to the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Russia is demanding the United Nations condemn Kyiv following an alleged drone attack that it claims killed a journalist working for a Russian outlet and injured several others.