Kremlin forces overwhelmed Ukrainian defensive positions dug into Russia’s western Kursk region and threatened a critical supply line, official and unofficial Russian information sources said Friday.
Ukraine, in August 2024, invaded Russia’s western Kursk region to carve out a Luxembourg-sized salient inside the Russian Federation consolidated around the town of Sudzha. Kremlin forces since then have slowly advanced, often at the price of heavy losses for small ground gains.
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The Russian Defense Ministry announced: “The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue to defeat the Ukrainian Armed Forces formations in the Kursk region” and went to claim Ukrainian losses included 170 servicemen, five armored vehicles and five artillery pieces. The official Kremlin statement offered no evidence to back up those claims.
The state-run Russian news agency RIA Novosti published images of rocket artillery firing, allegedly in the Kursk sector, and said that elements of 40th Naval Infantry Brigade, a Pacific coast unit, were participating in the attacks.
The popular Russian milbloggers, Voenniy Osvedomitel, late on Thursday evening published images of abandoned Ukrainian combat vehicles, including a Sweden-delivered CV-90 infantry fighting vehicle, and claimed Russian troops had captured them in Kursk sector.
Ukraine’s 21st Mechanized Infantry Brigade, one of the few AFU formations armed with CV-90, has fought in the Kursk salient for months.
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The very pro-Kremlin milbloggers, Dva Mayora, reported jubilantly to his 1.2 million followers in Friday: “The group of Ukrainian forces that is located in Sudzha is in practical turns already cut off. If they are going to retreat it will be on their own two feet, and not by vehicle. Soon there will be a big encirclement battle. The fight continues, we will not let up!”
The Russian “military correspondent” Simon Pegov, in a Friday report on battles in the Kursk sector, citing conversations with troops on the ground, reported Kremlin forces were hitting Ukrainian defenses on multiple axes: “Russian troops are pressing into the defenses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) in several sectors, and they are advancing continuously. There are tactical successes near the village of Kurilovka (in the vicinity of a key Ukrainian supply route) and in the vicinity of the village of Malaya Loknya.”
Images of troops flying a Russian flag from the roof of a building geo-located to Malaya Loknya village appeared in Russian military Telegram channels on Friday morning, possibly confirming Pegov’s report.
Unofficial Ukrainian sources likewise confirmed Russian claims in part. The Russian attacks captured a one-by-four-square kilometer slice of Russian territory and are threatening the single remaining supply road for Ukrainian forces further north, data published by the Ukrainian tracking group DeepState showed.
Internal news feeds of three combat units deployed to Kursk sector, and monitored by Kyiv Post, called the situation there “critical,” “extremely bad,” and “very difficult.”
The Ukrainian milbloggers, Ofitser, among other unofficial sources, said Russian commanders had re-committed North Korean infantry to the attacks. Kyiv Post could not confirm those reports independently.
Official Ukrainian information platforms on Friday acknowledged heavy battles in the Kursk sector but reported defensive lines were holding without offering details.
A morning situation report published by Ukraine’s Army General Staff acknowledged repeated Russian assaults threatening supply routes to Sudzha but said Ukrainian defenses were holding. Russian air strikes using long-range glide bombs were backing up the Russian assaults, that report said.
Ukrainian unofficial reports since early March had reported a sharp increase in Russian first-person view (FPV) drone attacks across the Kursk salient, and suggested Russian commanders had concentrated their best drone strike units in the area to dominate air space.
“We can 100% confirm the transfer of, if not all, then a significant part of the best Russian FPV drone crews to this sector….the Russians have begun to gradually increase the use of various types of FPV drones (at different frequencies, fiber optics, aircraft type), with the goal of neutralizing the logistics of the AFU…Today, we have only a couple of entry and exit routes to Kursk lands controlled by the enemy from the air on both sides of the border. Some sections of the roads are completely or partially blocked by our damaged equipment,” Ukrainian officer Artyem Karyakin wrote in a Wednesday Telegram post.
Serhiy Flesh, a widely read Ukrainian drone operations expert, in a post the same day said as the situation report in the Kursk sector, wrote: “I never thought I would say this. But, perhaps, it is time to ‘turn back’ from the Kursk direction. It is difficult for our guys there:-(…But this is just my personal opinion. I do not know the plans and objectives of this operation. “
President Volodymyr Zelensky and other officials have defended Ukraine’s incursion into Russian Federation territory as a successful operation that drew away Kremlin forces from possible assaults inside Ukraine, and that would give Kyiv strong leverage in future ceasefire or peace negotiations with Russia.
President Vladimir Putin has said Russia would never trade Russian land captured by Kyiv’s troops for Ukrainian territory taken by the Russian army, and that Russia will eliminate the Kursk salient by force. He has repeatedly set deadlines for the salient to be cleared, the most recently set deadline had been the end of January 2025.
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