Russian special forces have been quietly moving inside a 15km long gas pipeline to suddenly drop a Ukrainian army from behind in Kursk Oblast, Reuters reported, citing reports from the Ukrainian army and Russian bloggers.
This is one of Russia's most daring tactics in its efforts to re-occur the border areas of Russia's Kursk region that Ukraine won in a surprise counterattack.
The incursion was made through a gas pipeline that Russia used to export gas to Europe. According to Kremlin-backed blogger Yuri Podolyaka, a group of Russian soldiers had been traveling secretly inside the pipeline for days before suddenly appearing behind a Ukrainian site near the town of Sudzha.
Some images circulating on Russian Telegram channels show Russian soldiers wearing anti-poison masks moving along the inside of the giant pipeline.
Another blogger, nicknamed "Two Majors," also confirmed that fierce fighting is taking place in Sudzha and that Russia has taken advantage of the pipeline to penetrate the town.
On the evening of March 8, the General Staff of Ukraine confirmed that Russian forces had used a gas pipeline to hold a checkpoint near Sudzha. However, the Ukrainian army promptly detected and responded with missiles and artillery.
Sudzha, which had a population of about 5,000 before the conflict, was a strategic location with many important gas measurement and transportation stations.
Ukraine launched a daring cross-border offensive into Kursk Oblast in August last year, marking the largest such attack on Russian territory since World War II.
In just a few days, Ukrainian units have captured 1,000 square kilometers of territory, including the strategic border town of Sudzha. According to Kiev, this operation aims to gain a threshold in future peace negotiations and force Russia to shift its military away from the fierce attack in eastern Ukraine.
But now, Ukrainian soldiers in Kursk are tired and Bloodied by the relentless attacks of the Russian side. A map of open-air battlefields shows that tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers are at risk of being surrounded.
On March 8, the Russian Defense Ministry announced that the Russian army had retaken control of three villages in Kursk province, including Viktorovka, Nikolaevka and Staraya Sorochina.
