Five months after their shock offensive into Russia, Ukrainian troops are bloodied by daily combat losses and demoralized by the rising risk of defeat in Kursk.

(Tribune News Service) — After a surprise offensive earlier this year, Ukraine’s forces have lost about half the territory seized in Russia’s Kursk region and may lose the rest in a matter of months, according to U.S. officials, potentially depriving Kyiv of important leverage for ceasefire talks with Russia.

Since being caught unaware by the lightning Ukrainian incursion in August, Russia has amassed more than 50,000 troops in the region.

Ukrainian Special Operations Forces have published another part of the diary of a deceased North Korean soldier. "I betrayed my beloved Party, which had placed its trust in me," he writes. Ukrainian Special Operations Forces (SOF) have published the diary of a North Korean soldier who died in the Kursk region.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy said earlier this month that Russia was trying to "conceal losses" of North Korean troops fighting against Ukraine.