The Russian Ministry of Defense announced Thursday having recovered the absolute control of Sudzha, the largest municipality that Ukraine had conquered in the Russian province of Kursk. Images released since Wednesday by Russian military would confirm that the Kremlin troops control the urban core of Sudzha, although Ukrainian and military analysts in the area ensure that the fighting continues in their periphery. The fall of this town would be the penultimate victory of the Kremlin in Kursk: the next one will be the most likely complete exit of the Ukrainian troops of the enemy territory that they kept occupied since August 2024. Ukraine only maintains 10% of the conquered land, as Moscow has reported and confirm Ukrainy military analysts.
The Ukrainian General Staff had not published its expected part of the situation on the front, but Deep State, the main map of Ukrainian Analysis of the War, has assured that the infantry fighting in suburbs of the north and western Sudzha continues. Rybar, a proruse group of invasion analysis, states that the priority is to end small groups of Ukrainian soldiers in the area isolated from the rest of the contingent.
The defender of the Ukrainian People, Dmitro Lubinets, opened an investigation for the visual evidence that has appeared on social networks on the execution in the last days of five Ukrainian prisoners of war in Kursk by Russian combatants. The cases of murders of soldiers surrendered by Russian units have been recurring in Kursk.
Ukrainy military interviewed on Monday by the country in the province of Sumi, rear of the operation in Russian territory, assumed that Kursk’s withdrawal was “a matter of days or weeks.” The Russian Defense Ministry has reported that Ukrainian soldiers are being evacuated from their province. This is partially true because, although at the moment there is no full withdrawal order, there are thousands of combatants who are abandoning the area, as this newspaper could verify on Tuesday from the border area. Military of the 80th Airborne Brigade of Assault 15 kilometers from the Russian border had managed to leave Russia after walking 40 kilometers. The road that connects Sumi with Sudzha, the main logistics route of the Ukrainian army, is dominated by the air by the drones and the Russian artillery.
Oleksandr Sirski, head of the Ukraine Armed Forces, said on Wednesday night that his priority is “saving the lives of Ukrainian soldiers, and for that, if necessary, maneuver towards more advantageous positions”, that is, retreating. SIRSKI confirmed that his men were fighting in the Sudzha suburbs and that they had abandoned the center of the municipality. “We will continue in Kursk as long as it is effective and necessary,” added the head of the Ukrainian army.
The Ukraine Officer of Special Forces Bogdan Sigeti explained on Tuesday in a video shared in his social networks that both the transfer of weapons and the relief of the soldiers through the road to Sumi is “practically impossible”. “The fighting is very hard, our men are backing on foot, 15-20 kilometers, it is like in a horror movie,” Sigeti said in reference to the persecution of Russian bomb drones against the soldiers who recult. Sigeti added Wednesday that the chances of being achieved by a Russian drone in the movement of vehicles are 85%. A captain of the Territorial Defense Forces valued in an interview on Monday that the percentage was 80%.
The Russian army is above all trying to force the complete expulsion of the Ukrainians of their territory in a embolism operation that can lead them to occupy part of the province of Sumi again. This was recognized on Wednesday Andrii Demchenko, spokesman for the State Guard of Borders, although he has stressed that they are stopping them for now. The main pressure is taking place in the border village of Novenke, where neither sides controls the situation, but in which Russia is expanding its radius of action, according to Deep State.
Zelenski: “Difficult situation, but under control”
President Ukraine, Volodimir Zelenski, said Wednesday that the situation is difficult, but that it is under control: “Our troops in Kursk are fulfilling their functions. The Russians are applying maximum pressure on our combatants, but our military command is doing what should be done, saving the maximum number of lives of our soldiers. ” Zelenski’s words coincided with the relay of General Dmitri Krasilnikov at the head of the North Operations Command, partly responsible for the Kursk offensive from Sumi.
The General Staff stressed that Russia is moving quickly this March in Kursk in large part because it has transferred some of its best regiments to the region, which were at least until February fighting in the Ukrainian front of Donetsk. Military interviewed this week in Sumi by the country confirm this and another given by SIRSKI, that the enemy has overflowed them in number thanks to the incorporation of about 10,000 North Korean soldiers.
Multiple military sources have added that it has also had an impact on Ukrainian defenses in Kursk 10 days of suspension of American military and intelligence assistance ordered by Donald Trump. The US president wanted to press Zelenski to accept his proposal of high temporal fire. After agreing a common position in Tuesday’s meeting in Saudi Arabia among the envoys of both countries, Trump raised the punishment. The main effect was the lack of satellite images of the enemy movement and the lack of coordinate supply to attack in the Russian rear.
The Associated Press agency reported Thursday that the Ukrainian army would have run out of Arsenal de Atacms, the long -range missiles that the former president of the USA Joe Biden authorized to transfer to Ukraine at the end of his mandate, even to hit objects in Russia.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, visited a command center in Kursk on Wednesday, where he was received by the head of the Russian army, Valeri Guerásimov. Dressed in camouflage uniform, Putin said he has given the order to “release” as soon as possible the Russian territory where the Ukrainian forces are still. This land still under kyiv control is 10% of what Ukraine conquered in its surprise offensive in Kursk of August 2024.
The victory in Kursk will be for Putin a stroke of propaganda effect for its population. The Kremlin had also stated that it has no intention of negotiating anything with kyiv until its soldiers do not leave the Russian province. Kursk’s complete withdrawal will be for Zelenski a serious political setback, because he has been the main fence of the operation. Officially, it is considered that this incursion into Russian territory has been a success because it has forced Moscow to reduce military assets in its offensive in Donetsk. But the truth is that since the end of 2024, prominent Ukrainian officers and analysts have criticized the president because they consider that the losses have been huge and the nearly 30,000 soldiers who have fought in Kursk should have been defending Ukrainian territory.
