Russian forces take three new settlements in drive to oust Ukrainian forces in Kursk

By Guy Faulconbridge and Felix Light

MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russian forces on Sunday recaptured three more settlements in Russia's western Kursk region, the Defence Ministry said, part of an operation to evict Ukrainian troops holding chunks of territory seven months after a cross-border incursion.

The ministry statement, posted on the Telegram messaging app, followed reports by Russian bloggers that Russian special forces had crept for miles through a gas pipeline near the town of Sudzha in an attempt to surprise Ukrainian forces.

The three settlements now under Russian control according to the ministry -- Malaya Lokhnya, Cherkasskoye Porechnoye and Kositsa -- all lie north of Sudzha.

"The Russian Federation's armed forces are continuing to rout groups of the Ukrainian army on the territory of Kursk region," the statement said.

The earlier report by Russian bloggers on the pipeline operation appeared to be a ruse 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 (500 sq. miles) of Russia's Kursk region in August 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 drive 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 16 km (10 miles) along the inside of the 1.5 metre wide gas pipeline and spent several days in the pipe before surprising Ukrainian forces from the rear near Sudzha.

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 gas pipeline.

EUROPEAN FEARS

A statement from Ukraine's airborne assault forces said that Russian soldiers had used the pipeline in an attempt to gain a foothold, but the Russians were promptly detected and attacked with rockets, artillery and drones.

The Ukrainian military's General Staff in a late afternoon report said its forces repelled 15 Russian attacks in Kursk region, with six armed clashes still ongoing. It also reported 12 Russian air strikes on their positions.

Russian advances in 2024 and U.S. President Donald Trump's upending of U.S. 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 an earlier 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," Alaudinov said. "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.

Owing to battlefield reporting restrictions on both sides, Reuters was unable to verify the reports.

KURSK INCURSION

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 in 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 Ukrainian forces had been moving equipment 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 Kostyantynopil.

In a part of Ukraine's southern Kherson region held by Russian forces, Russia-installed officials said Ukrainian forces launched a missile attack on a busy market in the town of Velyki Kopani. Russian news agencies quoted local health officials as saying the strike killed two people and injured seven.

Reuters could not independently verify the report.

(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge in Moscow and Felix Light in Tbilisi Editing by David Goodman and Ron Popeski)