Ukraine surrounds Russian troops in Kursk, engages in long battleSubscriber exclusive

Ukrainian troops said they were preparing to surround some 3,000 Russian troops trapped near a river in Russia’s Kursk province, seeking a fresh blow against Moscow in the third week of a surprise raid.

The Ukrainian military said it used US-supplied Himars rocket systems and explosive drones to attack pontoons and bridge equipment as Russia struggled to prevent its forces from being encircled between the Seim River and the Ukrainian border.

THE Ukrainian raid of August 6 has put Russian President Vladimir Putin in a difficult position by seizing dozens of towns and villages in territory as vast as Russia has captured in a year of offensives in Ukraine. Kiev’s forces are expanding their control along the border and attacking Russian supply routes, while Moscow is stepping up its counterattacks with guided bombs and troops sent in from Ukraine and other parts of Russia.

So far, the raid has not changed the dynamics of the main battlefields in eastern Ukraine, where Russia is advancing toward Pokrovsk, a key Ukrainian logistics hub, and Toretsk, a city located on strategically important heights.

Meanwhile, Ukraine has used drones to attack an air base in Russia’s Volgograd region on Thursday morning, part of an intensified campaign of long-range strikes aimed at damaging Russia’s war machine. The Russian Defense Ministry said it repelled drones over five other regions overnight.

In Kursk, Ukraine is widening the scope of its incursion rather than seeking a deeper advance that would be easier to stop, said Mick Ryan, a military strategist and retired major general in the Australian Army.

“They occupy more defensible terrain, closer to Ukraine and easier to support,” Ryan said.

Ukraine’s intention to maintain what officials have called a buffer zone presents Putin with the dilemma of whether to try to expel the forces in what could be a costly operation. Such an effort would require the withdrawal of significant forces from Ukraine, weakening promising offensives against strategic targets in the east and potentially opening gaps that Ukrainian troops could exploit.

For now, Russia appears to be transferring forces from its reserves and areas of Ukraine where the fighting is not as intense, such as the south or northeast.

“The Russians can see how the situation is developing and do enough to stop the Ukrainians,” Ryan said.

For Russia, retaking the entire Kursk region may be a secondary goal compared to the more strategic goal of advancing further into the eastern Ukrainian province of Donetsk, which Putin has declared an integral part of Russia. Moscow is recruiting about 25,000 troops a month but suffers from a shortage of experienced soldiers capable of driving out the Ukrainians.

There is no panic in Moscow over the Kursk situation, according to Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. She says Putin sees the Ukrainian offensive as having little bearing on his broader strategic calculus, which is focused on capturing all of Donetsk and eventually bringing down the Ukrainian government to pave the way for negotiations favorable to Russia.

Stanovaya said the Russian military did not want to be drawn into a costly offensive on Kursk that might require the kind of scorched-earth strategy previously used in Ukrainian cities such as Avdiivka and Bakhmut. Adopting the same tactic against the Russian cities of Kursk, where some civilians still remain, is not a tenable policy.

“If a military solution is not found, this could last for months or a year,” he said of Ukraine’s position within Russia. “And in Moscow, people have gotten used to this idea.”

Yet the Ukrainian operation dealt a serious blow to Putin’s promise that the war he calls a “special military operation” would be limited to Ukraine and have minimal effect. in the life of ordinary Russians Some Ukrainian military commanders have long argued that making Russians feel the war should be a key part of kyiv’s strategy, because it increases pressure on Putin to end it.

“We want to bring the war to their territory,” said the commander of a drone battalion of the 14th Ukrainian regiment, whose call sign is Cold.

Cold’s drone units were among the first troops to enter Kursk and are now hiding in the basements of houses north of Sudzha, using their reconnaissance and attack drones to help Ukrainian forces break through.

He said Russia was fighting an uphill battle. Earlier this week, it sent an 80-strong force into one of the Ukrainian-held villages, dropping 21 guided bombs on the settlement in the space of an hour before its assault, which Ukraine fought off with difficulty.

“We also pay a price,” Cold said.

Russian troops are well-equipped, Cold said, and some clearly have extensive combat experience. Russia has also successfully used its electronic warfare systems to shoot down some of his unit’s drones. Through drone signals, you can see some Russian troops digging in and establishing defensive positions along the new front line, clearly expecting a prolonged campaign.

The drone strikes that Ukraine sent into Russian regions on Wednesday come as kyiv has stepped up attacks on airfields to prevent Moscow from using them to launch its own drones and warplanes. Last week, Ukraine carried out what one official described as the largest drone attack on Russian military airfields since the start of the war, with strikes in Voronezh, Kursk, Savasleyka and Borisoglebsk.

Cheaper and more available than cruise missiles, locally produced drones They allow kyiv to circumvent political restrictions on the use of weapons supplied by Western allies in attacks on Russian territory. Ukraine has also attacked Russian oil refineries with its drones.

In Sumy, a city in the Ukrainian region bordering Kursk, the roads are filled with military vehicles used to transport supplies to Kursk, including food and fuel for the troops. They are also bringing in generators, as damage to infrastructure in the Kursk region means there is no electricity.

As the Russians set up pontoon bridges to try to cross the Seym, the Ukrainians destroyed them with artillery fire. Private Andriy Brigadir of the 44th Ukrainian Artillery Brigade, which uses Western-supplied M777 artillery guns, said Russian river crossings are often carried out in a state of panic that exposes them to Ukrainian fire.

“The Russians are rushing to bring in every man they can find right now,” he said.

Among those men are now marines from Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, which is normally based far to the south, in the Russian-controlled Crimean Peninsula, according to the Russian Defense Ministry. On Tuesday, the ministry also announced the creation of three new military formations to defend Kursk province and two neighboring regions.

According to Ukrainian soldiers, this is unlikely to help Russian soldiers cut off from their supply lines near the Seym River.

“Now that we have blown up three of their bridges, it is only a matter of time before this pocket closes for them,” said the commander of a reconnaissance unit of the 14th Regiment, whose call sign is Croatian.