I'm Francis Dernley, and this is Ukraine, the latest.

Today, in addition to military and political updates, we report speculations about potential

offensives over the New Year period and feature an interview we did in Harkiv with a lady

who lived under the Russian occupation.

Finally, we end with some music.

Bravery takes you through the most unimaginable hardships

to finally reward you with victory.

The first duty of my government is security and defence to make clear our unshakable support of NATO and with our allies towards Ukraine.

Keep stand strong. Nobody's going to break us. We're strong. We're Ukraine is.

It's Monday, the 23rd of December, two years and 309 days since the full-scale invasion began.

And today, I'm joined by Foreign Desk alumni and co-host of our sister podcast battlelines,

Vinnie Sheraney.

But first to the battlefield.

According to estimates, December is on course to be the bloodiest month of the war so far for the invaders,

with almost 34,000 Russian troops believed to be dead, wounded or missing in Ukraine, with nine more days left still to go of this year.

I start with that because many Western politicians, diplomats and other officials will

be winding down for the next few days, but there will be no such relenting at the front. The numbers

of Moscow losses remain staggeringly high, and it's inevitable that losses will be high, too,

for the Ukrainian defenders. But let's turn to Kursk first, the site of

intense pressure as Moscow seeks to try and remove the Ukrainian troops from its territory there.

Geolocated footage published over the weekend shows Russian forces recently advanced east

of Krulenzko-Y, southeast of Koroanavo, then advancing 900 metres into central Kuralovka, just south of Sutsa,

...