Ukrainian troops have withdrawn from all however a sliver of land in Russia’s Kursk region, in accordance with navy analysts and troopers, as their monthslong marketing campaign to grab and occupy Russian territory seems to be nearing an finish within the face of Moscow’s counterattacks.
On the top of the offensive, Ukrainian forces managed some 500 sq. miles of Russian territory. By Sunday, they have been clinging to a slender strip of land alongside the Russian-Ukrainian border, overlaying barely 30 sq. miles, in accordance with Pasi Paroinen, a navy analyst with the Finland-based Black Chook Group.
“The tip of the battle is coming,” Mr. Paroinen stated in a cellphone interview.
The quantity of Russian territory nonetheless underneath Ukrainian management couldn’t be independently confirmed, and troopers reported fierce combating within the space. However amid a swift Russian advance backed by relentless airstrikes and drone assaults, Ukrainian troops over the previous week have withdrawn from a number of villages within the Kursk area in addition to from Sudzha, the main town under their control.
The Ukrainian navy command said that the troops had pulled again to what it described as extra defensible floor inside Russia alongside the border, utilizing hilly terrain to achieve higher fireplace management over approaching Russian forces. On Saturday, it launched a map of the battlefield exhibiting the sliver of land that Ukraine nonetheless controls within the Kursk area.
But it surely stays unclear how lengthy Ukrainian forces can maintain onto that patch.
The persevering with combating in Kursk is now much less about holding Russian territory, Ukrainian troopers stated, and extra about controlling the very best defensive positions to forestall the Russians from pushing into the Sumy area of Ukraine and opening a brand new entrance within the struggle.
“We proceed to carry positions on the Kursk entrance,” an assault platoon commander, who requested to be recognized solely by his name signal, Boroda, stated by cellphone. “The one distinction is that our positions have shifted considerably nearer to the border.”
Whereas the Ukrainian retreat from a lot of the Kursk area has been fast, navy specialists stated it got here after months of Russian assaults and bombings that steadily eroded Ukraine’s foothold within the space and severed its provide routes, ultimately forcing a withdrawal.
“What occurred in the previous few months was a shaping operation that set the circumstances for a profitable push,” stated Franz-Stefan Gady, an Austrian navy analyst who visited Ukraine’s Sumy area on the border with Kursk final month to talk with Ukrainian commanders.
Beginning in December, Russian forces, strengthened by newly deployed North Korean troops, launched repeated assaults on the flanks of the Ukrainian-held bulge within the Kursk area. By mid-February, they’d superior inside 5 miles of Ukraine’s foremost resupply routes into Sudzha, permitting them to focus on the roads with swarms of drones.
Late final week, Russia’s Protection Ministry claimed it had retaken Sudzha; on Saturday it stated Russian forces had retaken two villages outdoors the city.
Not like previous retreats by Kyiv’s forces elsewhere, like in parts of eastern Ukraine, navy analysts stated what has occurred in Kursk was comparatively orderly and didn’t consequence within the encirclement of enormous variety of troops — regardless of claims to the contrary made by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and President Trump.
“There was no menace of encirclement of Ukrainian troops, and no proof suggests in any other case,” stated Serhii Kuzan, the chairman of the Ukrainian Safety and Cooperation Middle, a nongovernmental analysis group.
Kyiv had hoped to make use of its management over Russian land in Kursk as leverage in any negotiation to finish the struggle. Ukraine has agreed to assist a U.S.-backed monthlong cease-fire, so long as Russia does the identical. The Kremlin has not but agreed, and appeared to be prolonging negotiations over the cease-fire that Washington and Kyiv proposed final week by laying out circumstances.
The State Division said that Secretary of State Marco Rubio and International Minister Sergey V. Lavrov of Russia spoke by cellphone on Saturday about “subsequent steps,” with out offering additional particulars.
Russia’s international ministry in a separate assertion on Sunday stated that Mr. Lavrov and Mr. Rubio mentioned “concrete facets of the implementation of understandings” reached in U.S.-Russia talks held final month in Saudi Arabia. It additionally supplied no additional particulars.
Nataliya Vasilyeva contributed reporting.
