KYIV: Russian special forces walked kilometers ( miles ) inside a gas pipeline to strike Ukrainian units from the rear in the Kursk region, Ukraine’s military and Russian war bloggers reported, as Moscow moves to recapture parts of its border province that Kyiv seized in a shock offensive.
Ukraine launched a brave cross-border intrusion into Kursk in August, in what marked the largest assault on Russian country since World War II. Within days, Ukrainian units had captured 1, 000 square kilometers ( 386 square miles ) of territory, including the strategic border town of Sudzha, and taken hundreds of Russian prisoners of war. According to Kyiv, the activity aimed to get a bargaining chip in future peace deals, and push Russia to divert forces apart from its grinding unpleasant in eastern Ukraine.
But decades after Ukraine’s storm work, its soldiers in Kursk are sick and wounded by continuous assaults of more than 50, 000 troops, including some from Russia’s alliance North Korea. Tens of thousands of Russian soldiers run the risk of being encircled, open source drawings of the battle show.
According to Telegram posts by a Ukrainian-born, pro-Kremlin blogger, Russian operatives walked about 15 kilometers ( 9 miles ) inside the pipeline, which Moscow had until recently used to send gas to Europe. Some Russian forces had spent several days in the tube before striking Russian units from the back near the town of Sudzha, blog Yuri Podolyaka claimed.
The city had some 5, 000 residents before the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, and houses key fuel transport and evaluating stations along the pipeline, once a key outlet for Russian natural gas exports through Russian territory.
Another war journalist, who uses the nickname Two Majors, said fierce fighting was afoot for Sudzha, and that Russian troops managed to enter the city through a oil pipeline. Russian Telegram stations showed pictures of what they said were special forces workers, wearing gas masks and moving along what looked like the inside of a big pipe.
Ukraine’s General Staff confirmed on Saturday evening that Russian” sabotage and assault groups” used the pipeline in a bid to gain a foothold outside Sudzha. In a Telegram post, it said the Russian troops were “detected in a timely manner” and that Ukraine responded with rockets and artillery.
” At present, Russian special forces are being detected, blocked and destroyed. The enemy’s losses in Sudzha are very high”, the general staff reported.
