Sawt Falasteen - Russia says captured key town in eastern Ukraine

Moscow has been pressing hard in eastern Ukraine, and the claimed capture of the industrial town is a major boost for its forces just two weeks before US President-elect Donald Trump comes to power, having vowed to strike a peace deal.

Both sides are looking to secure a better position on the battlefield before his 20 January inauguration. Moscow said Kyiv had launched its own counter-offensive on Russian territory over the weekend.

Russian units "have fully liberated the town of Kurakhove -- the biggest settlement in southwestern Donbas," the defence ministry said on Telegram.

Ukrainian forces did not confirm the claim, saying only that Russia was "conducting assault operations in the urban area of Kurakhove".

"Measures are underway to identify and destroy enemy assault groups trying to infiltrate our combat formations," the army said.

Ukraine's General Staff said on Facebook that its forces "repelled 27 attacks in the Kurakhove sector".

The industrial town of Kurakhove, which had a pre-conflict population of around 22,000 people, is located next to a reservoir and is home to a power station.

In a visit close to the town last November, AFP journalists saw abandoned houses, shattered by bombs, and empty supermarket shelves as residents fled in the face of Russia's grinding advance and daily bomb attacks.

The Russian defence ministry said Monday that Ukrainian forces had turned it into "a powerful fortified area with a developed network of long-standing firing positions and underground communications".

It called the town "an important logistics hub" and said its capture would allow Russian forces to seize the rest of the Donetsk region "at an accelerated pace".

It also said Ukraine's supply operations in the wider area would be "significantly hampered".

- Kursk 'operation' -

The capture of Kurakhove comes at a critical juncture in the conflict.

Trump has promised to bring a swift end to nearly three years of fighting, without proposing any concrete proposals for a ceasefire or peace deal.

In an interview with US podcaster Lex Fridman released Sunday, Zelensky said Trump would be crucial to any possible end to the conflict.

"Trump and I will come to an agreement and... offer strong security guarantees, together with Europe, and then we can talk to the Russians," Zelensky said, according to the published translation of the interview held in Kyiv over the New Year.

Trump "has enough power to pressure him, to pressure Putin," Zelensky said.

Ukraine is also trying to strengthen its position in the final two weeks before Trump's inauguration, upping attacks on Russian territory with US-supplied weapons.

Russia on Sunday said Kyiv had launched a fresh "counterattack" in the Kursk border region, five months after Ukraine's forces initially seized swathes of the area in a shock cross-border incursion.

The Ukrainian army has not commented on the operation, simply saying in its daily report that fighting was under way in the Kursk region without elaborating.

"Russia is getting what it deserves," Ukrainian presidential chief of staff Andriy Yermak said, without elaborating.

The extent of the operation or whether Ukraine had secured fresh territorial gains was not clear.

Kyiv seized dozens of villages in the Kursk region shortly after its incursion started on August 6, 2024, but its advances stalled after Moscow rushed reinforcements to the area, including thousands of troops from its ally North Korea.

D.Khalil--SF-PST