Ukraine-Russia war live: Zelensky says 15,000 of Putin’s troops killed in Kursk

Russia’s defence ministry has claimed its central, western and eastern troop groupings had repelled Ukrainian counter-attacks in the last 24 hours and improved their positions.

Russia said on Monday its forces had made important gains in eastern Ukraine while continuing to fend off a new Ukrainian offensive inside the Kursk region of western Russia.

However, open-source war trackers suggest that Ukraine have made confirmed gains in Kursk.

US president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming Ukraine envoy has postponed a fact-finding trip to Kyiv and other European capitals until after Trump’s inauguration on 20 January, according to four sources with knowledge of the trip’s planning.

Retired Lieutenant-General Keith Kellogg, who is set to serve as Mr Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, had initially planned a mission to Kyiv to meet with Ukrainian leaders in early January, Reuters reported last month. His team was also setting up meetings with officials in other European capitals, including Rome and Paris.

The Ukrainian military shot down 28 Russian drones overnight, it said this morning.

Of the 38 drones launched, 10 did not reach their targets, the air force said.

French president Emmanuel Macron has stressed the need for “realistic discussions on territorial questions” between Ukraine and invading power Russia saying that “such negotiations can only be conducted by Ukrainians themselves”.

Speaking on Monday in a new year’s address from the Elysee Palace, Macron called on the US to “help change the nature of the situation and convince Russia to come to the negotiating table”.

“The Europeans will have to construct security guarantees for Ukraine, which will be primarily their responsibility,” he said. Mr Macron countered Trump’s campaign pledge to reach a quick peace settlement, warning: “There is no quick and easy solution in Ukraine.

“The new American president himself knows the United States has no chance of winning anything if Ukraine loses,” he said. “The credibility of the West will be shattered if we compromise because of fatigue.”

The United States, Britain and the European Union have reaffirmed their support for Kyiv in the wake of its new offensive inside Russia’s Kursk.

“Ukraine has the right to defend itself, and under international law, this right extends beyond its borders,” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said in a statement to Reuters.

“Moscow’s unlawful war against Ukraine has included numerous Russian attacks originating from the Kursk region. So Russian military forces there are legitimate targets under international law.”

A US state department spokesperson said: “We are committed to putting Ukraine in the strongest possible position on the battlefield, including by surging security assistance and utilising all available resources authorised by the Congress.”

Britain said it would support Ukraine for “as long as it takes”.

The patriarch of Russia’s orthodox church, celebrating Christmas alongside Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin, claimed that the Western world despised Russia and its “alternative path of civilised development”.

Orthodox Christians in Russia celebrate Christmas today, according to the Julian calendar.

Patriarch Kirill, an enthusiastic backer of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, blessed icons and crosses that were to be engraved with the president’s initials and sent to servicemen in the 34-month-old war in Ukraine, Russian news agencies quoted Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov as saying.

“They hate us because we are offering a different, alternative path of civilised development,” Kirill said at Christ the Saviour Cathedral, which was rebuilt on the site of a swimming pool in the 1990s after Soviet dictator Josef Stalin levelled it in the 1930s.

The West was in moral collapse, he claimed, while Russia showed the world how to blend science, culture, education and faith.

“Physically, they cannot really smother us, though they try through different types of slander and the creation of blocs of some sort intended to weaken Russia,” he said. “Nothing will work because God is with us.”