Russian forces make progress amid record-high losses across Ukraine's Donetsk region

Russian forces continue to make significant and steady progress across Ukraine's Donetsk region as they are now moving in on the town of Pokrovsk and appear to be closing in on Kurakhove further south. 

Last week, the Russian defence ministry announced the capture of Trudove and Uspenivka settlements, completing the occupation of the final segment of the so-called "Uspenivka pocket" south of Kurakhove, a town of some 18,000 before Moscow's all-out invasion in early 2022. 

The Khortytsia battle group stated that the Ukrainian troops withdrew from this area after "heavy defensive battles". 

Ukrainian monitoring group DeepState claimed earlier that some troops did not manage to pull back after Russia captured the two settlements.

The sector lies roughly 8 kilometres south of the embattled front-line town.

According to DeepState, Russia is regrouping in the newly captured area and attacking in the direction of the Shevchenko-Andriivka section, threatening to create a new pocket. Russian forces are now focusing their efforts on the nearby town of Andriivka.

Russia's intensifies eastern Ukraine push

Moscow's advances have come at a significant cost. 

The UK's latest estimate, in line with Ukraine's Armed Forces General Staff figures, sits at over 768,000 Russian troops lost since the start of the all-out war. The statistics do not specify killed or wounded, though the overall consensus is that it includes dead, wounded, missing and captured.

November and December saw the most significant toll, with a daily high of 2030 Russian troops lost in November — the highest since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022 — according to the Ukrainian General Staff. 

At the beginning of December, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that Ukraine had lost 43,000 soldiers on the battlefield since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion.

According to the latest UN data, over 12,340 civilian deaths have been recorded in Ukraine since February 2022. 

The UN found that in 2024, aerial bombs and long-range weapons caused a more significant number of casualties than in the previous year. 

Around 42% of Ukrainian civilian casualties in November resulted from Russian attacks with long-range weapons, a "significant increase" from prior months, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said.

In October and November, Russia intensified aerial strikes against densely populated Ukrainian cities.

According to figures from Ukraine's Air Force, Moscow deployed a total of 2,576 drones during November and dropped at least 100 guided bombs per day nearly every day between 1 and 20 November.