Russian special forces crept miles through a gas pipeline near the town of Sudzha in an attempt to surprise Ukrainian troops occupying parts of the Kursk region.
It is part of an ongoing offensive to drive Ukrainian forces from the western Russian region, pro-Russian war bloggers said.
The ruse was part of a strategy aimed at cutting off thousands of Ukrainian soldiers in the region ahead of talks between the Zelenskyy government and the U.S. on a possible peace deal to end the war.
A statement from Ukraine’s airborne assault forces said that Russian soldiers had used the pipeline in an attempt to gain a foothold, but the Russians were detected and attacked with rockets, artillery, and drones.
Ukrainian troops seized about 1,300 square km of Russia’s Kursk region in August last year in what Kyiv said was an attempt to gain a bargaining chip in future negotiations and to force Russia to shift forces from eastern Ukraine.
“At the moment, Russian special forces are being detected, blocked, and destroyed. Enemy losses in the Sudzha area are very heavy,” Ukraine’s General Staff said in a statement released on the evening of March 8.
The ruse was part of a strategy aimed at cutting off thousands of Ukrainian soldiers in the region ahead of talks between the Zelenskyy government and the U.S. on a possible peace deal to end the war.
A statement from Ukraine’s airborne assault forces said that Russian soldiers had used the pipeline in an attempt to gain a foothold, but the Russians were detected and attacked with rockets, artillery, and drones.
Ukrainian troops seized about 1,300 square km of Russia’s Kursk region in August last year in what Kyiv said was an attempt to gain a bargaining chip in future negotiations and to force Russia to shift forces from eastern Ukraine.
“At the moment, Russian special forces are being detected, blocked, and destroyed. Enemy losses in the Sudzha area are very heavy,” Ukraine’s General Staff said in a statement released on the evening of March 8.
Russian advances
The Kyiv Independent reported that the Ukrainian military described the situation as “difficult” but under control.Russia has been pressing to regain control of the region with some success in recent days.
Open-source maps on Friday showed Kyiv’s forces in Kursk nearly surrounded after rapid Russian advances.
According to Yuri Kotenok, a war blogger, Ukrainian forces have been moving equipment away from Sudzha, closer to the border.
Yuri Podolyaka, a Ukrainian-born, pro-Russian military blogger, said Russian special forces crept nearly 16 km along the inside of the 1.5-meter-wide gas pipeline and spent several days in the pipe before surprising Ukrainian forces from the rear near Sudzha.
Russian Telegram channels showed pictures of special forces in gas masks and lights as they made their way along the inside of what looked like a large pipe.
Owing to battlefield reporting restrictions on both sides, it is difficult to verify the claims made by both sides in the conflict.
The Soviet-era Urengoy-Pomary-Uzhgorod pipeline was used to bring gas from western Siberia via Sudzha to Ukraine, but Kyiv terminated all Russian gas transit through its territory on January 1.
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