Utterly Confused, Demoralized Ukrainian Troops

"They don't understand where our side is, where the enemy is, what's under our control, and what isn't."

"They don't understand the operational situation, we so act at our own discretion."

Ukraine troop commander

"There's no other option. We'll fight here because if we just pull back to our borders, they won't stop; they'll keep advancing."

"All the military can think about now is that Donbas has simply been sold."

"At what price?"

Ukrainian drone unit commander

In this photo taken from a video released by Russian Defense Ministry press service on Friday, Nov. 29, 2024, Russian serviceman aims a D-30 howitzer towards Ukrainian positions in Kursk region.  Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP

Ukrainian troops, once so buoyed by their initial success in pushing Russian troops back from their own national territory over the border into Kursk during their shock offensive, are now bludgeoned by the inevitable response, repulsed, bloodied and demoralized. The early heady days of success are now behind them; what lies ahead is quite different; the prospect of defeat and retreat from Kursk. Uncertainty is now their constant companion.

They have faced intense battles, so much so that commanders have found themselves in the position of having to abandon all thought of recovering the bodies of their dead servicemen. Communication is sporadic and lagging, lives have been lost thanks to poor timing, leaving troops little opportunity to counterattack, according to front-line commanders and soldiers speaking to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

Russia has recovered from its humiliatingly unexpected surprise of being caught unaware by the Ukrainian incursion whose lightning advance five months ago was so stunningly staged. Since then, Moscow has amassed over 50,000 troops in the region. Russia's ally, North Korea, has stepped forward with the offer of supplemental troops from its own military.

 

A destroyed Russian tank sits on a roadside near the town of Sudzha, Russia, in the Kursk region, on Aug. 16, 2024, in an image approved by the Ukrainian Defense Ministry before publication. 

 

The counterattacks by Russia have been responsible for killing and wounding thousands. The Ukrainian military, badly overstretched, has lost over 40 percent of the 984 square kilometres of Russian territory it had amassed and seized back in August. Russia, on the other hand, since its invasion three years earlier now holds a fifth of Ukraine. The hope is now fading that the Kursk tactic might present a counterweight in negotiations, convincing Moscow to release Ukrainian territory in exchange for a negotiation over the Kursk region and an end to the war.

Matters have reached a new low for Kyiv whose internal advisers and western officials envision that the gamble on Kursk may weaken the entire 1000-kilometre front line, while Ukraine continues to lose more of its territory in the east. "We have, as they say, hit a hornet's nest. We have stirred up another hot spot", Stepan Lutsiv, a major in the 95th Airborne Assault Brigade, admitted.

 

A Ukrainian soldier walks past a city hall in Sudzha, in the Kursk region of Russia, on Aug. 16, 2024. This image was approved by the Ukrainian Defense Ministry before publication

 

According to Army chief Oleksandr Syrskyi, Ukraine launched the Kursk operation when officials felt Russia was on the cusp of launching a new attack on northeast Ukraine. An order to leave Ukraine's Sumy region on August 5 for what was generally felt to be a nine-day raid to stun the enemy, instead turned into an occupation, enabling Ukraine's smaller military to gain leverage while embarrassing Russian President Vladimir Putin.

 

 

The Ukrainian military ordered an advance beyond the original mission to the town of Korenevo, 25 kilometres into Russia, to take greater advantage of the success that was achieved. And in the end, more latterly Korenevo was one of the first towns that Russian troops counterattacked for retrieval. Russians steadily and swiftly regained their territory by early November.

Once so proud of what they had accomplished, Ukrainian troops' optimism has been turned around, forced to come to terms with massive losses. One company commander spoke of half his troops dead, or wounded. Conditions are tough, morale is low and troops question command decisions. The very end-purpose of occupying Kursk is being questioned.

Some soldiers question more vocally whether Kursk has been worth the more recent losses experienced by their units, given their front-line losses in the eastern region of the Donbas where Russia is now closing in on a crucial supply hub.

"For three days in a row, the enemy has been conducting intensive offensive operations in the Kursk region, actively using North Korean army units."

"North Korean mercenaries have already suffered heavy losses. The Ukrainian defenders are steadfastly holding the defence, destroying enemy personnel and equipment."

"[The] most difficult situation [is currently around Kurakhove and the mining city of Pokrovsk -- two areas Russia is aiming to seize."

"[The] operational and strategic situation remains difficult [across the 1,170-kilometre (730-mile) front line, a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russia's troops had seized] the strategic initiative across the front."

Ukraine’s commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrsky

In this image taken from a video released by the Russian Defense Ministry on Nov. 7, 2024, Russian soldiers fight with Ukrainian troops in the Sudzhansky district of the Kursk region of western Russia.   AP

"The Russians Ran Away"

"Despite difficult, intense fighting, the advance of our forces in the Kursk region continues."

"[Ukraine has been able to] replenish [its numbers of Russian POWs to exchange for its own troops and] preparation for our next steps continues."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy 

"It's obvious that the enemy will keep trying to destabilize the situation in the border zone to try to destabilize the domestic political situation in our country."

"[Russia's main task is] to squeeze out, drive the enemy out of our territories and, together with the border service, to ensure reliable cover of the state border."

Russian President Vladimir Putin

"Ukraine is not interested in taking the territory of the Kursk region, but we want to protect the lives of our people."

"The purpose of this operation is to preserve the lives of our children, to protect the territory of Ukraine from Russian strikes."

Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Heorhii Tykhyi

"[Russian military actions in Ukraine bear] the hallmarks of genocide, inhumane crimes, and Ukraine has every right to wage war in such a way as to paralyze Russia in its aggressive intentions as effectively as possible."

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk

A Ukrainian military vehicle drives from the direction of the border with Russia carrying blindfolded men in Russian military uniforms, in the Sumy region, on August 13, 2024. Photo by ROMAN PILIPEY/AFP via Getty Images

Russia declared its forces successfully checked a plan by Ukrainian troops to expand its week-long incursion into the Kursk region. Interestingly, Ukraine now has control of 74 settlements in the region. On the other hand, Russian army units; fresh reserves, aircraft, drone teams and artillery forces managed to stop Ukrainian armoured mobile groups in their move to penetrate deeper into Russia near Kursk settlements, according to a Russian Defence Ministry statement.

Heorhii Tykhyi, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, emphasized that the cross-border operation had the intention of protecting Ukrainian geography from long-range strikes launched from Kursk, several thousand at last count. Russian military use of anti-aircraft missiles, artillery, mortars, drones, 255 glide bombs and over 100 missiles were dispatched from Kursk into Ukraine. Reasonably enough, President Zelenskyy feels it appropriate that Russian towns and village receive a little of the excitement that Ukrainian towns and villages have been exposed to, over the past few months.

 

People evacuated from a fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces in the Kursk region sit next to tents at a temporary residence center in Kursk, Russia, on Monday, August 12.  AP

Attacks in eastern Ukraine have been intensified by Kremlin forces. Over a 24-hour period, Russian troops launched 52 assaults in the area of Pokrovsk, a town in Ukraine's Donetsk region, close to the front line, according to the Ukraine General Staff. Kremlin forces, in other words doubled the number of daily attacks occurring there a week earlier. The Ukrainian charge through to Russian soil that was initiated on August 6 has encompassed about 1,000 square kilometres of Russian territory, though the swift advance into Kursk has goals not yet understood.

According to analysts, Ukraine's wish to ease pressure on its front line by seeking to draw Kremlin forces into defending Kursk and other border areas may have been the motivating actor. Moscow, on the other hand, appears not to have succumbed, given the increased pressure it has mounted around Pokrovsk. Ukraine's largest attack on Russia since the Second World War has certainly rattled the Kremlin, compelling Mr. Putin to convene a meeting of top defence officials.

 

Ukraine appears to be seizing more Russian territory after it unexpectedly carried out an attack on the country's Kursk region.  CBC

 

Ukraine appears to have assembled thousands of troops -- estimated by some Western analysts, as up to 12,000 in recent weeks, an event that appears to have escaped the notice of the Russian military. "They didn't protect the border" explained a Russian serviceman. "They only had anti-personnel mines scattered around trees at the side of the road and a few mines that they managed to quickly throw along the highway. The Russians ran away. They didn't have time to press the detonator buttons."

 

Some 121,000 people have evacuated from Kursk or fled the areas affected by fighting. Washington-based Institute for the Study of War, stated it has appraised geolocated footage, indicating that Ukrainian forces had advanced up to 24 kilometres from the border. If nothing else, the Ukrainian incursion has given a blow to the Kremlin, highlighting its inability to protect the country, and reversing Putin's boast that Russia has been largely unscathed by the hostilities he initiated with his 'special military operation'. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Kyiv's forces are continuing to gain ground in Russia's Kursk region, and the nearby region of Belgorod has declared a regionwide state of emergency.