Hoping to bolster the resolve of a nation whose heart “is covered in scars” after more than 1,000 days of unrelenting Russian assaults, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said in his New Year’s address on Wednesday that he believed the United States would continue to stand with Kyiv in “compelling Russia into a just peace.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that Russian and North Korean forces suffered heavy losses in fighting in Russia's southern Kursk region.

The Russian army lost up to a battalion of North Korean infantry soldiers and Russian paratroops. This is significant,’ Zelensky said.