Just as Ukrainian forces are losing their grip on the pocket of Russia’s Kursk region they captured last year, they have staged a so-far little-publicized incursion into the adjacent Belgorod region, according to Russian military bloggers.
Several Russian military correspondents said on Friday that Ukrainian troops were inside Belgorod and fighting battles with Russian forces there.
Neither Kyiv nor Moscow has confirmed the reports, though Russia’s defense ministry said ten days ago that its forces had thwarted five Ukrainian attempts to push across the border in Belgorod.
Ukraine’s military has not commented on any thrust into the Belgorod region by Kyiv’s forces, though that could be for operational security reasons.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, addressing reporters in Kyiv, said Ukrainian forces had taken “certain steps” in Russia outside the Kursk region to ease pressure on Ukrainian troops in the area.
Zelenskiy said the action was intended to “reduce the accumulation” of Russian troops and had occurred “a little below the Kursk region. He did not elaborate.
Andrii Kovalenko, an official at Ukraine’s National Defense and Security Council, suggested in a statement on March 18 that Ukrainian forces could act in the Belgorod region, “neutralizing threats” from Russian forces that might mass near the border.
Rybar, a Russian military blog with 1.3 million subscribers, said there had been heavy clashes in a settlement called Popovka and each side was hitting the other with drones. Another Telegram account, Two Majors, said Russian forces were conducting “defensive operations.”
“There are constant strikes on concentrations of Ukrainian Armed Forces, but the enemy still has serious offensive potential for this direction and has not abandoned plans for further breakthroughs, including in new areas of the front,” it said.
A third military blog, called Arkhangel Spetsnaza, reported fighting in a village called Demidovka and said some Ukrainian soldiers were surrounded there.
The Ukrainian operation may be an attempt to distract Russian forces as they try to drive out the last Ukrainian forces from next-door Kursk. One of the Russian blogs, Rybar, said Moscow had moved reinforcements to Belgorod from Goptarovka in the Kursk region.
Emil Kastehelmi, a military analyst with the Finnish-based Black Bird Group, said Ukrainian forces had penetrated the first Russian defenses and advanced most likely to a depth of 3-4 km.
But he said it was unlikely that they could stage a serious breakthrough and threaten any important Russian logistical routes or cities.
In Kursk, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Friday its forces had recaptured the village of Gogolevka, one of only a handful of settlements still held by Ukraine out of around 100 that it seized last August.
Ukraine’s General Staff said its military had stopped 18 Russian assaults in the Kursk region over the past day.
President Vladimir Putin visited Kursk this month in a sign of increasing confidence that Russia will shortly win it back, depriving Ukraine of a bargaining chip in future peace talks.
