Ukrainian forces sought to solidify their gains in newly seized Russian territory on Tuesday after capturing hundreds of Russian soldiers as Kyiv’s brazen incursion entered its second week.
The shock offensive has swiftly gained significant ground in the Kursk region, embarrassing President Vladimir Putin and lifting the spirits of a war-weary army that has been fighting on its heels for much of the past year.
Deep State, a Ukrainian analytical group that works closely with the defence ministry, said the country’s forces had “advanced in Sudzha and captured Guyevo . . . and fully entrenched themselves in Goncharovka”.
Ukrainian soldiers on Monday filmed themselves ripping down the Russian flag from an administrative building in Guyevo, about 3km inside the Kursk region.
Ukraine has also captured hundreds of Russian soldiers, according to videos published by military brigades and verified by the FT, to hold as prisoners of war who could be swapped for their own troops in Russian captivity. A series of such swaps have already taken place.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday expressed gratitude to “each of our units that replenish the exchange fund for us, for Ukraine”.
“Russia brought war to others, and now it is coming home,” he said, hinting the incursion would strengthen Ukraine’s hand in any potential talks with Russia to end the war.
Russia’s defence ministry said on Tuesday it had hit Ukrainian forces with air strikes, drone attacks and artillery fire that prevented them from advancing further into the Kursk region. The ministry also asserted it had repelled a Ukrainian attack east of Sudzha and that it “cleared” a Ukrainian-occupied village. The claims could not be independently verified.
Moscow confirmed it had been carrying out artillery strikes on what it said were military targets in Ukraine, to prevent further deployments. Russia claims that more than 2,000 Ukrainian soldiers have died during the incursion — even though it said only half that number were part of the initial attack.
Russian bloggers close to the military posted videos on Telegram, subsequently verified by the FT and open-source analysts, that showed Russian forces ramming first-person view (FPV) drones armed with explosives into Ukrainian armoured fighting vehicles and troop carriers.
In one video, Russian troops celebrated the capture of a Ukrainian BTR-4 infantry fighting vehicle.
Ukraine’s top general said on Monday that the territory held by his troops had expanded to 1,000 sq km. Deep State on Tuesday said it had confirmed 800 sq km was under Ukrainian control, with an additional 230 sq km yet to be verified. But it said its information “may ultimately differ from the testimony of participants directly [involved] in events”.
On Tuesday a senior Russian military officer claimed, without providing evidence, that Moscow’s forces were retaking areas seized by Ukraine.
Apti Alaudinov, who commands the Akhmat special forces unit from Chechnya, said “the situation in Kursk region is under control” and that Russia was “clearing out the settlements where the enemy remains”, according to state newswire RIA Novosti.
The challenge for Ukrainian leaders now is deciding whether the potential benefits of pressing on justify the risk of deploying more troops and resources urgently needed on the eastern front, where Russia has made steady gains.
Andriy Zagorodnyuk, former defence minister and chair of the Centre for Defence Strategies, a Kyiv think-tank, said Ukraine should “either . . . press further or hold” the territory it has taken, “depending on risks” being constantly evaluated.
Kyiv’s operation is unprecedented in the 10 years that Russia has been at war with Ukraine, and marks the largest foreign incursion into Russia since the German army stormed in during the second world war.
The scale of Russia’s security failure has prompted rare, candid discussions in Moscow. Alexei Smirnov, the governor of Kursk region, told Putin on Monday that Ukraine now controlled 28 settlements after entering 12km past the border over a 40km-wide stretch.
Putin abruptly cut him off, saying this was a matter for the military and ordering him to focus on the “socio-economic situation”.
Zelenskyy on Monday said the operation was also designed to alleviate constant Russian attacks on Ukraine’s neighbouring Sumy region, which on Monday night included drone strikes.
Western military aid has more steadily flowed to Ukrainian units on the frontline since a long-stalled package worth $60bn was approved by the US Congress in April, but Ukraine’s army remains outgunned and outmanned by Russia.
In eastern Ukraine, Russian forces have pressed dangerously close to the garrison city of Pokrovsk and strategic towns of Chasiv Yar, Toretsk and Niu-York.
Deep State’s map of the front line showed much of Niu-York under Russian control on Tuesday. Ukrainian soldiers who fought there before joining the Kursk operation told the FT they expected Niu-York to fall in the coming days.
In Donetsk region, the Kursk fight has been met with a mix of elation and frustration.
“I’m glad our boys are having success in Kursk,” said a senior Ukrainian officer on the frontline in Donetsk region. “We still have a hot fight here. I hope [our commander-in-chief] Syrsky remembers this.”
Soldiers on the front line said one of the goals of the operation was to force Moscow to divert resources from its offensive in the Donetsk region to Kursk, but there is little sign this has been achieved so far.
Russia has reportedly moved some forces from occupied southern Ukraine. The Kremlin has designated its response as a “counter-terrorist operation” led by the FSB, the main successor to the KGB, and the Rosgvardia national guard alongside the military. That has pointed to discontent among pro-Kremlin hardliners over the military’s failings.
Russia’s state media published videos of heavy armour being shipped to Kursk, but it does not appear to have been taken from eastern Ukraine.
Mykola Bielieskov, research fellow at the National Institute for Strategic Studies, part of Ukraine’s military policy department, said Russia could be weighing one of two approaches, “to just stabilise the front [in Kursk region] or recover all lost territories”.
“If it’s [the] second scenario then it might force [the] major redeployment of Russian troops out of Donetsk region,” Bielieskov added.
Ukrainian officials and experts argued that it was too soon to pull out of Kursk. Zagorodnyuk said he expected Ukrainian forces to try to press deeper into Russia.
“I suspect they will proceed further a bit somewhere while Russians are still moving their troops. “But the next phase will be positional,” he added, predicting that Kyiv might soon consider which areas could be kept under its control and best defended.