 Ukraine begins new counter-offensive operations time announced. A senior Ukrainian military commander said that the Ukrainian military is working to stabilize the battlefield situation and intends to form units for counter-offensive actions against Russia later this year. We will stabilize the situation shortly, said Oleksandr Pavliuk, Ukraine's newly appointed ground force commander. They will do everything possible to prepare the troops for more active actions and to seize the initiative, he said. Pavliuk described the situation on the battlefield as difficult but controlled. Russia is trying to occupy as much Ukrainian territory as possible before the Russian presidential elections in March, so everything possible and impossible is being thrown at the offensive. Pavliuk noted that, judging by the numbers of soldiers estimated to have been killed and captured, it can be assumed that the Russians are throwing newly mobilized servicemen at the contact line without any training. They are given only a short briefing and thrown into battle, all in order to seize the initiative. Our task is to stabilize the contact line, kill as many as possible, which we are doing and regroup as much as possible in order to withdraw units in need of replenishment and recovery and move them to the training grounds so that we can establish an attack group and conduct counter-offensive operations this year. We are succeeding and the situation is stabilizing, he added. Pavliuk said there are still several hotspots where the Russians are concentrating their efforts. Avdivka, the Chassiv Yar area and the Turney area towards Lyman. There is very fierce fighting there every day, but our guys are holding on. They are holding on quite confidently. The enemy's losses are huge. I think we will destabilize the situation soon and will do everything possible to prepare the troops to move towards more active operations and seize the initiative, he said. Oleksandr Sirsky, commander-in-chief of the armed forces, announced on the 13th of February that Ukraine had moved from offensive actions to a defensive operation. Ukraine has some pleasant surprises in store for Putin on the battlefield US State Department. Ukraine has a plan that they can execute to achieve victories on the battlefield and surprises are still awaiting the Russians' US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told. The comments come after Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland said in January that Putin is going to get some nice surprises on the battlefield. Miller cited Ukraine's recent sinking of Russian Black Sea Fleet ships as an example of these surprises. We believe that Ukraine has a plan that they can execute to achieve victories on the battlefield, she said. We've seen them having victories on the battlefield most recently in the Black Sea where they sunk another Russian ship. So we do believe that they have some surprises in store. We look forward to seeing the results. Russia lost another major ship in the Black Sea after the US$65 million Sergei Kotov patrol ship was hit and sunk by Ukrainian Magura V-5 drones. Earlier Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that there are more surprises coming for Russia's military assets in the Black Sea. The Ukrainian leader said that among Kiev's goals for 2024 was to continue our successful story on the Black Sea. And we will do it, Zelensky said. I will not go deeply into details, but they will get some surprises. That's very important. Ukraine ramped up its attacks on Russia's infrastructure stationed in the Crimean Peninsula in recent months, which served as a launching pad for Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. Kiev has particularly honed in on Russian President Vladimir Putin's Black Sea Fleet, claiming that its forces have disabled about a third of the Kremlin's naval warships since the start of the battle. North Korea continues arming Russia and threatens war with South Korea. Vladimir Putin, Russia's president, will soon visit the Hermit Kingdom of North Korea for the first time in just over two decades. The Economist media outlet said this. It is noted that the two countries are becoming more friendly, which is helping Russia in its war in Ukraine and is emboldening the North Korean regime. It comes at a time when Kim Jong-un, the country's hereditary dictator, is embarking on a new round of bellicosity towards South Korea. Some serious observers think that Kim means to launch some kind of military provocation against the South soon. Politicians in Seoul, South Korea's capital, promise a ferocious response. Given the North's nuclear weapons, any kind of war talk raises jitters throughout the region. The Economist writes that Kim has saber-rattled before. Shortly after he became the heir apparent in 2010, North Korea sank a South Korean ship and then shelled an island off the west coast of the peninsula controlled by the South. He has also ramped up North Korea's military arsenal. In the past decade, more than 224 ballistic missile tests have taken place compared with 16 between 1997 and 2011. The country now possesses enough fissile material for 35 to 63 nuclear devices according to the Institute for Science and International Security and American think tank up from 5 to 13 in 2005. The North currently has almost 1,000 long range artillery pieces trained on Seoul. North Korea has sent about 6,700 containers carrying millions of munitions to Russia since September in exchange for food as well as parts and raw materials for weapons manufacturing. South Korean Defense Minister Shin Won-sik told that the containers might carry more than 3 million 152mm artillery shells or 500,122mm rounds. It could possibly be a mix of the two and you can say that at least several million shells have been sent. Shin said he said hundreds of North Korean munitions factories are running at about 30% of their capacity due to a lack of raw materials and electricity, but those producing artillery shells for Russia were operating at full swing. In return for the munitions, Russia provided North Korea with food, raw materials and parts used in weapons manufacturing. South Korea and the United States have since accused North Korea and Russia of trading arms in violation of United Nations sanctions and condemned Pyongyang for supplying weapons to Moscow for use against Ukraine.