Russian President Vladimir Putin's new year address did not include any explicit mention of the so-called "special military operation" still raging in Ukraine 22 months after Moscow commenced its full-scale invasion of the country, as new maps show conflict lines at the beginning of 2024.
Putin—who ended 2022 with an address surrounded by troops at the headquarters of the Southern Military District close to the Ukrainian frontier—delivered his 2023 year-end address alone in front of the Kremlin in Moscow. Russia, Putin said, is "one big country, one big family."
The president thanked military personnel for fighting for "truth and justice," adding the troops have "the support of the entire people." Russians, Putin said, "have repeatedly proven that we can solve the most difficult problems and will never back down because there is no force that can separate us."
While Russians watched the president speak, fierce fighting continued at several key points along the 600-mile front. Ukraine's 2023 counteroffensive push has failed to achieve the desired breakthrough, with leaders in Kyiv now urging the country and its troops to brace for a winter of Russian bombardment and continued grinding assaults.
The coming year will be "difficult" for Ukraine and its Western backers, Kusti Salm—the permanent secretary of the Estonian Defense Ministry—previously told Newsweek.
"They need to assume the defensive; they need to grind it out," he said from Tallinn, around 120 miles from NATO's frontier with Russia.
The Institute for the Study of War noted "heavy losses" among Russian units in ongoing battles, particularly among the elite airborne (VDV) forces, "in simultaneous infantry-heavy Russian offensive operations on multiple fronts."
Newsweek has contacted the Russian Defense Ministry by email to request comment.
The fighting is taking place across four eastern and southern regions of Ukraine: Luhansk in the northeast, Donetsk in the east, Zaporizhzhia in the southeast, and Kherson in the south.
In Luhansk, Russian forces have been pressing attacks for several months, making meager gains at high cost. Offensives here in the northeast were widely interpreted as an effort to draw attention and resources away from Ukraine's counteroffensive in the southeast during the summer months, while also seeking to capture the rest of Luhansk Oblast.
The fighting there is focused on the settlements and areas around Kupyansk, Svatove and Kreminna. On Sunday, Ukrainian Ground Forces Command spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Volodymyr Fityo characterized the Ukrainian stance as an active defense.
Donetsk has played host to some of the fiercest fighting of the full-scale war, and to the lower intensity conflict between Kyiv and local separatists—armed and directed by Moscow, as well as directly supported by Russian troops—that has ravaged the region since 2014.
Fighting continues around the devastated Donetsk city of Bakhmut, now synonymous with Russia's attritional offensives. To its south, Russian forces appear to be pursuing the same approach to the fortified city of Avdiivka, seeking to encircle the Ukrainian bastion despite reported severe casualties.
Russian troops have enjoyed recent success in Marinka, south of Avdiivka, which Ukrainian forces evacuated in late December after almost two years of combat.
Zaporizhzhia Oblast and the Zaporizhzhia-Donetsk administrative border were the focus of Ukraine's failed 2023 counteroffensive, Kyiv's units hoping to break through Russian defensive lines protecting the so-called "land bridge" of occupied territory connecting southern Ukraine and Crimea to the western Russian border.
The Ukrainian advance floundered after carving out small salients around the settlements of Robotnye and Urozhaine. As 2024 begins, the Ukrainian advance has stalled. Russian troops are now pushing to recapture ground lost since Kyiv's counteroffensive began in early June.
Kyiv has scored small but symbolic successes along the banks of the Dnieper River—known as the Dnipro in Ukrainian. The waterway has served as a formidable demarcation line between Ukrainian and Russian forces since the liberation of Kherson in November 2022.
But in the second half of 2023, Kyiv's troops began expanding cross-river raids into a sustained presence in settlements along the Russian-occupied east bank. Ukrainian forces there have not broken out of their small riverside footholds, but Moscow's troops have also proven unable to dislodge them.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
David Brennan is Newsweek's Diplomatic Correspondent covering world politics and conflicts from London with a focus on NATO, the European ... Read more
