Even as Russia was counterattacking in some locations, the Ukrainians remain on the offensive along other parts of the Kursk front where Ukrainian forces breached the border in a new location west of the original incursion. Ukraine is using new forward positions inside Russia to disrupt Moscow’s logistical operations, attacking roads and bridges along critical supply lines feeding Russian forces inside Ukraine. And they are continuing efforts to isolate a large group of Russian soldiers in a 270-square-mile pocket of land between the Ukrainian border and the Seym River 10 miles inside Russia. "So far, nothing’s working for them. We are still attacking.”
After racing across Russian fields in an American Stryker armored fighting vehicle this month, the six-man Ukrainian assault team dismounted in a tree line about 700 yards from the enemy’s trenches and waited for the order to attack.
When it came, Afonya, a 40-year-old construction worker drafted into the Ukrainian military just two months ago, said the Ukrainian soldiers were met with a hail of gunfire as soon as they moved from their hastily dug foxholes. He was hit in the hand by a bullet that shattered a bone.
Three members of the assault team were injured and pulled back while the other three waited for reinforcements to resume the attack in the Kursk region of Russia.
“There were too many of them,” Afonya said in an interview at a hospital in eastern Ukraine, where he was recovering after being evacuated.
More than a month after Kyiv launched its incursion into Kursk — sweeping across nearly 500 square miles and capturing around 100 Russian towns and villages in a few short weeks — Russian resistance is stiffening, Ukrainian soldiers interviewed near the border with Russia said as they moved to and from the front last weekend. President Volodymyr Zelensky told reporters on Thursday that Russian forces had begun a concerted counterattack in Kursk.
Some of the heaviest battles have been taking place on the western edge of the new front, according to the soldiers and combat footage geolocated by military analysts. But the battle lines remained fluid, and there was little reliable information about the scale of Russia’s operation or how successful it has been in reclaiming territory.
Ukrainian soldiers said that even as Russia was counterattacking in some locations, they remained on the offensive along other parts of the Kursk front. But their advances have slowed and clashes are growing deadlier as Moscow deploys reinforcements and increases its aerial bombardments. “There is more resistance,” said Yurii, 21, who was with one of the first Ukrainian units to cross the border when the incursion was launched on Aug. 6. There are more drones, “more shells, and even anti-tank guided missiles,” he said. “Their intelligence is also working very hard. As soon as a vehicle moves out, their artillery starts firing immediately.”
The Ukrainian soldiers spoke on the condition that only their first names be used, in accordance with military protocol. They also asked that their brigades not be named out of concern that it could give the Russians insight into the location of their forces. While some of the information they provided is corroborated by geolocated combat footage, details about specific offensive movements could not be independently verified.
As powerful Russian guided bombs thundered in the distance on a recent day and a puff of smoke overhead marked the spot where a Russian surveillance drone was shot out of the sky, one group of soldiers, speaking on the side of a road near the border, said that more Russian troops were joining the fight every day. Dmytro, a 40-year-old member of a drone unit, said the fighting in Kursk was still less intense than other battles he has fought in over the course of the war, but that is changing.
“They’re trying, but so far, nothing’s working for them,” he said. “We are still attacking.”
The soldiers said that much of the fighting before the Russian counterattack was for small tactical advantages — like taking control of a ridge or hill — that could prove useful in future battles. Ukraine is using new forward positions inside Russia to disrupt Moscow’s logistical operations, attacking roads and bridges along critical supply lines feeding Russian forces inside Ukraine, soldiers said.
And they are continuing efforts to isolate a large group of Russian soldiers in a 270-square-mile pocket of land between the Ukrainian border and the meandering Seym River about 10 miles inside Russia, they say. Ukrainian forces destroyed all of the bridges across the river and are targeting temporary pontoon bridges as soon as they are spotted, according to soldiers, satellite imagery and geolocated combat footage. But the Russian counterattack this past week appeared designed to relieve pressure on that pocket of land.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said its country’s forces had “penetrated” into the Kursk region, capturing 10 settlements.
The Institute for the Study of War, whose analysts use geolocated combat footage to track daily battlefield developments, wrote on Friday that they had yet to observe visual confirmation to support the Kremlin’s claims, with Russian soldiers appearing to be in partial control of two villages.
At the same time, Ukrainian forces breached the border in a new location west of the original incursion, according to combat footage released by both sides and geolocated by military analysts. The state of the fighting there is unclear, but it could complicate Russia’s counterattack.
As they battle to hold onto their gains, the Ukrainian soldiers said the campaign was coming at a steep cost.The Kremlin is clearly hoping the Ukrainian military has overextended itself, leaving outnumbered and outgunned Ukrainian forces in the country’s eastern Donbas region vulnerable as Russia continues to press the attack there, military analysts say.
President Vladimir V. Putin has sought to minimize the first invasion of Russia since World War II as a mere distraction. While saying it was a “sacred duty” to expel Ukrainian forces, he said Russia’s main priority remained seizing Ukrainian lands.
Mr. Zelensky and Ukraine’s top military commander, Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, have said the offensive has multiple goals, including drawing Russian forces from other parts of the front.While the Ukrainian leaders acknowledged that the Kremlin has resisted pulling its best forces from the hottest parts of the eastern front as they had hoped, General Syrsky has maintained that the Kursk offensive is still affecting Russia’s ability to sustain other operations around the battlefield as it moves some 60,000 soldiers to the Kursk front.
Bill Burns, the C.I.A. director, told a conference in London last weekend that the operation was “a significant tactical achievement” that had boosted Ukrainian morale and exposed Russia’s weaknesses.
Mr. Zelensky has said the offensive is a part of a “Victory Plan” that he will present to President Biden and the two candidates vying to replace him — Kamala Harris and Donald J. Trump — on a trip to the United States this month.
Whatever the ultimate plan, Kursk is now clearly another violent front in an already sprawling war.
“Same war, different place,” said Dmytro, the drone operator.As the Russians fight to halt the Ukrainian advance, soldiers said, they are using the same tactics they use inside Ukraine — a scorched-earth approach that has left dozens of Ukrainian towns and cities in ruins. But the Russian bombardments are now devastating Russian homes, soldiers said.
“I bring the guys food, fuel, diesel, and gasoline over there,” a 56 year-old soldier who works in logistics, also named Serhii, said at a rest stop on the Ukrainian side of the border. “It was strange, when our troops first came, everything was intact. The roads were fine, the warehouses were untouched.”
“But after a couple of weeks, everything was destroyed, shattered,” he said. “They are destroying their own villages.”
Those claims by the Ukrainian soldiers were supported by combat footage showing Russian strikes on Russian villages and towns occupied by Ukrainian soldiers.In Sudzha, the largest town under Ukrainian control, some high-rise and administrative buildings were destroyed as the Ukrainians advanced, but independent Western journalists who visited the region in the first days after it fell noted that the level of destruction was minimal compared with places in eastern Ukraine seized by Russian forces.
That is fast changing.
“Now, when you stand on a hill, for example, and look at Sudzha, you wake up every morning thanking God that you’re alive,” said Serhii, the soldier from Sumy. The town, he said, is a “land on fire.”
As he prepared to head back into Russia at nightfall, he said his heart was heavy with emotion. He understood the mission and thinks it is important, but would rather not have to fight on foreign soil.
“It’s one thing to defend your own land, but another to be over there,” he said.
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