The United States donated 31 of the 69-ton, four-person M-1s in 2023. In a year and a half of hard fighting, the 47th Mechanized Brigade—the sole Ukrainian user of the high-tech Abrams— has lost at least nine, and potentially as many as 17, of the tanks.

Ukraine launches a new offensive in Russia's Kursk region, raising questions about its strategic goals and potential impact on the war's trajectory and upcoming peace talks.

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, where a second day of fierce fighting was under way.

Ukraine launched a fresh operation in Russia's southern Kursk region, Moscow said on Sunday, after Ukrainian officials and military bloggers reported new attacks from Kyiv in a region where Moscow is eager to reassert its grip.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday that Russia had suffered heavy losses in five months of fighting Ukrainian forces in southern Russia's Kursk region, with nearly 15,000 killed.

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 and are also fighting to envelop the larger nearby city of Pokrovsk, Ukrainian soldiers and officials said.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a US-based think tank that maps the frontline, said Ukraine had made advances into the southern outskirts of Berdin. It is to the northeast of the city of Sudzha, the most significant area held by Ukraine since the start of the first assault five months ago.

Ukraine's fresh offensive in Kursk comes nearly six months after Kyiv first sent troops into the western Russian region.

The Kremlin has welcomed a meeting with US president-elect Donald Trump just days after he claimed Vladimir Putin wanted to sit down with him.Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said there could be progress on setting up the meeting after Trump is sworn in as US president on 20 January.

Members of Russia's political elite are "disappointed" with Russian President Vladimir Putin's handling of the war in Ukraine, and had hoped it would end in 2024, Meduza reported on Jan. 9. Citing ten officials including two sources close to Putin’s administration,

A total of 144 combat clashes have occurred on the battlefield since the start of 9 January, with most of the fighting taking place on the Pokrovsk, Kursk and Kurakhove fronts. Source: General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on Facebook,