This is the dramatic moment Russian special forces tried to ambush Ukrainians by creeping through a gas pipeline in an attempt to cut off thousands of troops.
Russian special forces crept miles through a gas pipeline near the town of Sudzha in an attempt to surprise Ukrainian forces as part of a major offensive to eject Ukrainian soldiers from the western Russian region of Kursk, pro-Russian war bloggers said.
The ruse was among moves aimed at cutting off thousands of Ukrainian soldiers in the region ahead of Ukrainian talks with the United States on a possible peace deal to end the war.
Ukrainian troops seized about 1,300 square km of Russia’s Kursk region in August last year in what Kyiv said was an attempt to gain a bargaining chip in future negotiations and to force Russia to shift forces from eastern Ukraine.
Russia has been pressing its push to regain control of the region with some success in recent days.
Open source maps on Friday showed Kyiv’s contingent in Kursk nearly surrounded after rapid Russian advances.
‘The lid of the smoking cauldron is almost closed,’ former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Telegram. ‘The offensive continues.’
Yuri Podolyaka, a Ukrainian-born, pro-Russian military blogger, said Russian special forces crept nearly 10 miles along the inside of the 1.5metre wide gas pipeline and spent several days in the pipe before surprising Ukrainian forces from the rear near Sudzha.
Russian special forces crept miles through a gas pipeline near the town of Sudzha in an attempt to surprise Ukrainian forces as part of a major offensive to eject Ukrainian soldiers from the western Russian region of Kursk
Footage captured the soldiers making their way through the enormous pipe
Russia tried to get behind Ukraine lines in Kursk by climbing into a disused gas pipeline leading right into Sudzha
The ruse was among moves aimed at cutting off thousands of Ukrainian soldiers in the region ahead of Ukrainian talks with the United States on a possible peace deal to end the war
Pro-Russian war blogger Two Majors said a major battle was under way for Sudzha and that Russian forces had surprised Ukrainian soldiers by entering the area via a major gas pipeline.
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 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.
Russian advances in 2024 and US President Donald Trump’s upending of US policy on Ukraine and Russia have raised fears among European leaders that Ukraine will lose the war and that Trump is turning his back on Europe.
The United States paused military aid and the sharing of intelligence with Ukraine this month after a meeting between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on February 28 descended into acrimony in front of the world’s media.
In its daily update on the situation in Kursk, Russia’s Defence Ministry said its forces had retaken the village of Lebedevka, as well as seizing Novenke, a hamlet across the border in Ukraine’s neighbouring Sumy region.
Moscow made no official mention of the pipeline operation, but Major General Apti Alaudinov, commander of Chechnya’s Akhmat special forces, reposted pictures on Telegram of special forces inside a gas pipeline.
‘I am surprised by people who really think that Russia could lose,’ said Alaudinov. ‘It is a good day.’
Russian Telegram channels showed pictures of special forces in gas masks and lights, some using colourful colloquial Russian curses, as they made their way along the inside of what looked like a large pipe.
Russia has been pressing its push to regain control of the region with some success in recent days
A Russian climbing along a former gas pipe with 80 of his colleagues with the aim of getting to the rear of Ukrainian troops in Kursk
Owing to battlefield reporting restrictions on both sides, Reuters was unable to verify the reports.
The Soviet-era Urengoy-Pomary-Uzhgorod pipeline used to bring gas from western Siberia via Sudzha to Ukraine but Ukraine terminated all Russian gas transit through its territory from January 1.
Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk last August was the most serious attack on Russian territory since the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941.
Another war blogger, Yuri Kotenok, said that Ukrainian forces have been moving equipment away from Sudzha, closer to the border.
The Russian offensive raises a serious tactical conundrum for Ukraine just as the spring thaw turns roads to mud tracks: should it withdraw from Kursk, and if so, can it do so without a disorderly rush to the border under intense Russian fire?
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has led to the biggest confrontation between the West and Russia since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
In the eastern Donetsk region, where Russian forces have made slow but steady progress during gruelling fighting in what was once Ukraine’s industrial heartland, Moscow said on Sunday that its forces had taken the village of Konstyantynopil.
Meanwhile, French Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornu said Sunday that France will use profits from frozen Russian assets to finance an additional £164million in arms for Ukraine, the latest in a series of military aid deliveries funded through the mechanism.
In an interview with the La Tribune Dimanche newspaper, Lecornu said that Paris will send new 155mm artillery shells and glide bombs for Mirage 2000 fighter jets it previously gave to Ukraine.
The move prompted an angry response from the speaker of Russia’s parliament, Vyacheslav Volodin.
Russians being hit Ukrainian drones after attempting to sneak through gas pipes
Ukraine’s general staff confirmed that Russian ‘sabotage and assault groups’ attempted to use the pipeline to establish a foothold outside Sudzha but were ‘detected in a timely manner’
A statement by the State Duma’s press service Sunday cited Volodin as saying that Paris ‘will answer for its actions’ and eventually have to return what Volodin called ‘stolen’ funds.
Elsewhere, Russian officials and Telegram channels reported that Ukrainian drones targeted oil infrastructure in south and central Russia overnight into early Sunday.
One drone struck an oil depot in Cheboksary, a Russian city on the Volga River about 620 miles from the border, the local governor reported.
According to Oleg Nikolaev, nobody was hurt but the depot needed reconstruction work.
Footage circulated on Russian Telegram channels at what appeared to be a fire at or near one of Russia’s largest oil refineries, in the southern city of Ryazan.
Shot, a news channel on Telegram, cited local residents as saying they heard several nighttime blasts near the refinery. Local Gov. Pavel Malkov said Ukrainian drones had been shot down nearby. He claimed there had been no casualties or damage.
Shot, a news channel on Telegram, cited local residents as saying they heard several nighttime blasts near the refinery.
Local Gov. Pavel Malkov said Ukrainian drones had been shot down nearby.
He claimed there had been no casualties or damage.
