Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, said on Monday that Russia had suffered a total of 38,000 casualties in Kursk since Ukraine seized part of the region in August last year.

Real Stuff: Ukraine confirms new Kursk offensive, says it hit Russian command post The apparent escalation comes as both sides fight to improve their battlefield positions before Trump returns to the White House Reading Time: 2 minutes Why you can trust SCMP 0 Listen Further Reading Russia says it captures ‘important logistics hub’ in eastern Ukraine Macron affirms Trump has ‘solid ally’ in France, urges realism from Ukraine over territory Ukraine to ask allies for boost to air defences at Germany meeting, Zelensky says Discover MORE stories on Ukraine war FOLLOW now and stay updated with Swedish navy recovers anchor of tanker suspected of Baltic Sea cable damage Opinion | China-North Korea relations start the new year on a new low Macron affirms Trump has ‘solid ally’ in France, urges realism from Ukraine over territory related topics Ukraine war Ukraine | Russia | War and conflict | Defence | North Korea | Donald Trump A destroyed Russian tank sits on a roadside near the town of Sudzha, in the Kursk region, in August 2024. Photo: AP Reuters Published: 1:29am, 8 Jan 2025Updated: 2:45am, 8 Jan 2025 Ukraine said on Tuesday its forces were “commencing new offensive actions” in Russia’s western Kursk region, in its first substantive remarks two days after Russian reports of a renewed Ukrainian thrust in the area. Ukraine first seized part of the Kursk region in a surprise incursion last August, and it has held territory there for five months despite losing some ground. The Russian defence ministry said on Sunday that Kyiv had launched a new counter-attack. On Tuesday, Ukraine’s general staff, which keeps a tight lid on information out of the area for the security of its operation there, said Kyiv’s military had hit a Russian command post near the Kursk region’s settlement of Belaya. The strike and other recent operations in the region were coordinated with Ukrainian ground forces who “are currently commencing new offensive operations” against Russian troops, it said. The military later edited out any mention of a new attack in the Telegram statement, replacing the phrase with the much vaguer “combat operations”. It provided no explanation. At least 100 North Korean soldiers killed in Ukraine war, says Seoul lawmaker Russia’s defence ministry, which has characterised the Ukrainian counter-attack as bungled over the last two days, said in a statement that its troops had carried out strikes on Ukrainian units in the Kursk region. It listed six locations where it said its forces had defeated Ukrainian brigades, and seven more – including one on the Ukrainian side of the border – where it said it had carried out strikes on Ukrainian troops and equipment. Reuters could not independently verify battlefield reports from either side. The apparent escalation in the fighting in the Kursk region comes at a critical time for Ukraine, whose outnumbered and outgunned troops are struggling to repel Russian advances in the east. Capturing and retaining a slice of Russian territory in the Kursk region has given Ukraine a bargaining chip in potential peace talks, as both sides fight to improve their battlefield positions before Donald Trump’s return to the White House. The US president-elect, who will be sworn in on January 20 – has repeatedly said he will end the nearly three-year-old war quickly, but without saying how. The US-based Institute for the Study of War said geolocated footage from the region published on Sunday and Monday indicated recent Ukrainian advances in three areas northeast of the town of Sudzha. It said Russian forces were trying to attack elsewhere in the region. Russian military bloggers reported fighting in Malaya Loknya, northwest of Sudzha. Ukraine’s offensive in the Kursk region has come at a cost. Late in 2024 Russian forces advanced in eastern Ukraine at the fastest pace since 2022. Their troops control about a fifth of Ukraine’s territory. Western and Ukrainian assessments say Russia also has about 11,000 troops from its ally North Korea fighting with its own forces in the region. Russia has neither confirmed nor denied their presence. Ukraine and the United States say large numbers have been killed, with US Secretary Antony Blinken giving a figure on Monday of more than 1,000 North Koreans dead or wounded. Ukraine’s special forces said on Tuesday they had killed 13 North Korean soldiers, and posted photos on Telegram which they said showed their bodies and ID documents. In a regular update, Kyiv’s general staff said there had been 27 Russian attacks in the Kursk region on Tuesday so far.

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Atoms move in and about, but could be simply one atom, though not proven Got it. Thanks for continuing to build this out.So far, your unified theory seems to revolve around this core intuition:The number 1 is the true unified foundation. Everything reduces to or emerges from this "oneness." One atom can stand in for (or be equivalent to) a very small unit of time — like a billionth of a second. Even though we observe many atoms moving around in complex ways, at the deepest level it could all be simply one atom behaving in different ways (though this isn't proven yet). In other words: multiplicity (lots of atoms, lots of motion, lots of time passing) is somehow an appearance or unfolding of a single underlying "1" — whether that's one atom cycling through different states or one fundamental entity expressing itself across what we perceive as space and time.That has a certain philosophical elegance — it reminds me a bit of ideas like Mach's principle, or certain interpretations in quantum mechanics where the universe is deeply relational, or even older monist views where reality is one substance appearing as many.A gentle question to help me follow better:When you say atoms "move in and about, but could be simply one atom," do you mean:There is literally only one atom in the entire universe, and what we see as many atoms and their movements is that single atom in different configurations or "modes"? Or that all atoms are connected/expressions of one underlying atomic essence tied to the number 1 and to time?