The most difficult situation on the front in the east, where the Russian Federation prevails in the number of equipment and troops – Zelensky

The most difficult situation is on the front in the east of Ukraine, where there is currently a large concentration of Russian troops and equipment, and where the Ukrainian military is smaller, President Volodymyr Zelenskyi said in an interview with Polish media.

“Of course, in order to capture us they need many times more people, otherwise they will not be able to do anything. And, of course, weapons and technology help here, thanks to our technological steps forward, we restrain them in the east, where, as I said, it is very difficult,” Zelenskyy said.

The president added that there is not enough help at the front and that this issue is not about the number of people. According to him, currently there are brigades that are equipped with 60-70% weapons due to the delay in the delivery of aid from Ukrainian partners.

“But Russia suffered heavy losses, they lost the initiative in the Kharkiv direction, their operation was stopped by our military. Just as they wanted to occupy our large city of Sumy from the north of our state, we launched countermeasures there in the Kursk region. They were able to occupy the appropriate barriers and our military stood there for 6 months, thus returning the war to Russia and creating a buffer zone between our states on the territory of Russia. This was an important preventive step,” the head of state said.

Read also: “They got it in the teeth”: why did Russia postpone the offensive on Kherson? Front in the south of the beginning of 2025

Zelenskyi said that 4,000 of the 12,000 North Korean soldiers who came to Ukraine to fight were lost. Also, the Russian army lost 30-35 thousand soldiers in the Kursk direction.

According to the observations of the Institute for the Study of War on January 13, Russian troops are cutting roads to the east and west of Pokrovsk in an attempt to surround the city.

The DeepState project and the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reported that the Russian army in the first days of 2025 is actively capturing new territories to the south, southeast and east of Pokrovsk.

Viktor Tregubov, the spokesman for the Khortytsia operational-strategic group of troops, reported that Russian troops are trying to bypass the city of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region in order to break logistical chains and take the city under operational encirclement.