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How Ukraine’s Offensive in Russia’s Kursk Region Unraveled

 

At the height of the campaign, Ukraine controlled some 500 square miles of Russian territory. Now it holds just a small sliver of land along the border.

A Russian soldier in the Kursk region in December.Credit...Nanna Heitmann for The New York Times

A Russian soldier in the Kursk region in December.Credit...Nanna Heitmann for The New York Times

Ukrainian forces have pulled almost entirely out of the Kursk region of Russia, ending an offensive that had stunned the Kremlin last summer with its speed and audacity.

Ukrainian soldiers at the front described a retreat that was organized in places and chaotic in others, as Russian forces stormed through their lines and forced them back to a sliver of land along the border.

By the time one Ukrainian assault platoon retreated from its position less than a week ago, all their vehicles had been destroyed, drones hunted them night and day and they were almost out of ammunition.

Russian forces were closing in from all directions, said the platoon’s commander, “prompting our retreat.”

The commander, who asked to be identified only by his call sign, Boroda, in keeping with military protocol, said it took his unit two days to hike more than 12 miles from their positions near the Russian village of Kazachya Loknya to the Ukrainian border. By then, “the area where our positions had been was already occupied by Russian forces,” he said when reached by phone.

At the height of the offensive, Ukrainian forces controlled some 500 square miles of Russian territory. By Sunday, they were clinging to barely 30 square miles along the Russia-Ukraine border, according to Pasi Paroinen, a military analyst with the Finland-based Black Bird Group.

“The end of the battle is coming,” Mr. Paroinen said in a phone interview.

How much Russian territory Ukraine still controls in Kursk could not be independently confirmed, and soldiers reported fierce fighting was ongoing. But the fighting near the border is now less about holding Russian land, Ukrainian soldiers said, and more about trying to prevent Russian forces from pouring into the Sumy region of Ukraine and opening a new front in the war.

The soldiers said they are trying to set up strong defensive positions along ridgelines on the Russian side of the border.

“We continue to hold positions on the Kursk front,” said Boroda, the assault platoon commander. “The only difference is that our positions have shifted significantly closer to the border.”

Andrii, a Ukrainian intelligence officer fighting in Kursk, put it more bluntly: “The Kursk operation is essentially over” he said. “Now we need to stabilize the situation.”

The Kursk operation was seen by some analysts as an unnecessary gamble, stretching Ukraine’s troops and leading to heavy casualties at a time when they were already struggling to defend a long front line in their own country. But it provided a much-needed morale boost to Ukraine, which had sought to show it could bring the war home to Russia and had hoped the territory it occupied there would serve as leverage in any cease-fire negotiations.

While Kyiv has managed to stall Russia’s advance in eastern Ukraine, the turn in Kursk comes as the Trump administration is pushing for a quick truce.

The reversal of Ukraine’s fortunes in Kursk, culminating with a retreat that began in earnest earlier this month, did not come down to any one factor. Russian forces pounded Ukraine’s supply lines and began to cut off escape routes. North Korean troops brought in by Moscow, who faltered at first, improved their combat capabilities. And at a crucial moment, U.S. support — including intelligence sharing — was put on hold.

When The New York Times last visited the border between Sumy and Kursk in late January, daytime movement was nearly impossible because the skies were filled with Russian drones.

The main road from Sumy to Sudzha, a small Russian town about six miles to the northeast that Ukrainian forces had occupied since August, was already littered with burned-out cars, tanks and armored vehicles.

Ukraine had dispatched some of its most experienced brigades to the Kursk operation, but months of unrelenting assaults by Russian forces and the thousands of North Korean troops fighting alongside them were taking a growing toll.

While the North Korean troops had withdrawn from the battlefield in January to regroup, they returned to the fight in early February. And Ukrainian soldiers said their combat skills had improved.

 

Ukrainian soldiers in a village in the Sumy region in January, after returning from the Kursk region of Russia.Credit...Finbarr O'Reilly for The New York Times
Ukrainian soldiers in a village in the Sumy region in January, after returning from the Kursk region of Russia.Credit...Finbarr O'Reilly for The New York Times

“Many of them executed very smart tactical maneuvers,” said Boroda, the platoon commander.

By mid-February, Russian forces had advanced to within five miles of Ukraine’s main resupply routes into Sudzha, allowing them to target the roads with swarms of drones — many of which were tethered to ultrathin fiber optic cables and therefore immune to jamming.

Other Ukrainian soldiers, who like Boroda asked to be identified only by their first name or call sign in accordance with military protocol, described Russian forces using attack drones for ambushes.

“Their drones would land near key supply routes and wait for a target to pass by,” said Cap, a 36-year-old Special Operations Forces fighter who asked to be identified by his call sign.

Russian drones were also hitting pre-placed explosives to destroy bridges in Kursk, to try to make it harder for Ukrainian troops to retreat, Ukrainian soldiers said.

Russian warplanes also attacked bridges, in one case dropping a 6,000-pound guided bomb to cut off one major artery, according to Ukrainian soldiers and military analysts.

Artem, a senior Ukrainian brigade commander, said that the destruction of the bridges was one of the key reasons Kyiv’s forces had to abandon positions so suddenly in recent weeks. Not everyone made it out, but most did, he said.

Ukraine’s hold in Kursk was already in danger when the Trump administration announced the suspension of military aid and intelligence sharing on March 3.

The sudden loss of American intelligence for precise targeting compounded the difficulties, according to Andrii, the intelligence officer. Without it, he and other soldiers said, the American-made multiple-rocket launchers known as HIMARS fell silent.

“We could not allow expensive missiles to be fired at the wrong target,” Andrii explained.

Then on March 8, Russian troops made a breakthrough, sneaking behind Ukrainian lines by walking for miles through a disused gas pipeline to stage a surprise attack. Russian propagandists and officials cast the operation as heroic feat, while Ukrainian sources called it a risky move that led to many deaths.

While the exact number of Russian troops involved and the success of the attack was impossible to independently confirm, “it caused enough confusion and havoc behind Ukrainian lines that it likely triggered them to start withdrawing,” said Mr. Paroinen from Black Bird Group, which analyzes satellite imagery and social media content from the battlefield.

The Russians “outplayed us a bit,” Andrii said. “There was a little panic.”

At around the same time, North Korean troops were helping lead an assault that broke through Ukrainian lines south of the small village of Kurylivka, further constraining Kyiv’s ability to supply its troops.

 

Razor wire defenses in the forest in the Sumy region of Ukraine, along the border with Russia, earlier this year. Credit...Finbarr O'Reilly for The New York Times
Razor wire defenses in the forest in the Sumy region of Ukraine, along the border with Russia, earlier this year. Credit...Finbarr O'Reilly for The New York Times

As Ukrainian forces there retreated along designated defensive lines, Russian forces kept pushing toward Sudzha and the pace of attacks increased.

Given the Russian positions, evacuating by vehicle would have given drones an easy target, analysts said. And the destroyed military vehicles littering the roads also created obstacles for a retreat — which is why a “significant part of the withdrawal was done on foot,” according to Serhii Hrabskyi, a military analyst and former Ukrainian Army colonel.

Some Ukrainian soldiers burned their own equipment to prevent it from falling into Russian hands before hiking out, soldiers said.

On March 10, the order was issued for some units to withdraw from Sudzha, three Ukrainian soldiers and commanders said.

“It was a mix of organized and chaotic retreat,” Boroda said. “Various factors influenced the nature of the withdrawal: fatigue, good or poor orders from individual commanders, miscommunication or well-established coordination.”

However, despite claims to the contrary made by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and President Trump, at no point were large numbers of Kyiv’s forces surrounded, according to military analysts who use geolocated combat footage to map battlefield developments, Ukrainian soldiers fighting in Kursk and even some prominent Russian military bloggers.

Three days later, Russia’s Defense Ministry said it had regained full control of Sudzha. On Saturday, it claimed its forces had retaken two villages outside the town.

While the Ukrainian military’s general staff has not directly addressed Russia’s capture of Sudzha, it on Sunday released a map of the battlefield showing the town outside the territory it controls in Kursk — which has shrunk to a narrow strip of land.

Sudzha, once home to 5,000 people, sustained heavy damage in the fighting. And since the Kursk operation began, military analysts say, both sides suffered heavy losses.

While Kyiv had hoped to use its control over Russian land as leverage in any negotiation to end the war, now Mr. Putin appears to be using the Ukrainian retreat to try and strengthen his hand in talks with the Trump administration about pausing the hostilities.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine on Saturday accused Russian forces of massing along the border and attempting to cut off and trap Ukrainian troops in Kursk by pushing into the neighboring Sumy region. The claims could not be independently verified.

Now, Ukrainian soldiers say, they are determined to stop the Russians from pushing toward Sumy.

Oksana Pinchukova, a 44-year-old volunteer living in Sumy, said she is worried about what the weeks ahead will hold.

“Living under constant strikes and shelling — not everyone can handle that,” she said.

Reporting was contributed by Yurii Shyvala, Liubov Sholudko, Maria Varenikova and Constant Méheut.

Marc Santora has been reporting from Ukraine since the beginning of the war with Russia. He was previously based in London as an international news editor focused on breaking news events and earlier the bureau chief for East and Central Europe, based in Warsaw. He has also reported extensively from Iraq and Africa. More about Marc Santora

Author: Editors Desk, Marc Santora, Reporting from eastern Ukraine

Source: N.Y Times

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