The Russian military has been preparing for a possible offensive of Ukraine in the Kursk region for several months.
This is stated in the documents that the Ukrainian army received in the captured territories of the Kursk region. The British publication The Guardian got acquainted with them.
The documents belong to the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Federal Security Service and the military — they were seized during a raid by Ukrainian special forces on Russian territory. The Guardian notes that it received them from the Ukrainian military and cannot independently confirm whether they are authentic.
These are mostly documents from units of the 488th Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, which was the first to bear the brunt of the Ukrainian troops. The earliest records are dated to late 2023, and the most recent are just six weeks before Ukraine began its invasion of the Kursk region.
Ukrainian offensive
In Russian documents, warnings about the Ukrainian offensive on the Kursk region appeared several months before it began.
The message dated January 4, 2024 referred to the "possibility of a breakthrough on the state border" by Ukraine. So the Russian military was ordered to step up training to prepare to repel any attack.
Since February 19, the Russian military assumed that the Armed Forces of Ukraine would try to break through to a depth of up to 80 kilometers from the territory of the Sumy region. And in mid-March, the border units were ordered to strengthen defenses and "organize additional training on proper defense organization."
Already in the middle of June, the Russian military was given a specific warning about Ukrainian plans in the direction of the city of Sudzha which did come true in August. The document also talked about the plans of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to destroy all the bridges over the Seim River in order to cut off the supply lines for the Russian army, which also happened in the end. The June document complains that the Russian units stationed at the border are only 60-70% manned and mainly consist of poorly trained reservists.
When the offensive of Ukrainian troops began on August 6, many Russian soldiers left their positions — and within a week, Ukraine took full control of Suja, where about 5 thousand people lived. One of the unnamed Ukrainian special forces said: "The Russians fled without even evacuating or destroying their documents."
The documents provide insight into Russiaʼs tactics over the past year. They also note the high level of suicides in units and depression among Russian military personnel related to their service in the army.
The Kursk operation
For the first time, it became known about the offensive of the Defense Forces in the Kursk region of the Russian Federation on August 6 — then Russian telegram channels and "military corps" wrote about it.
Ukraine officially confirmed the operation only on August 12. As of September 6, Ukraine controlled at least 1 300 km² and 100 settlements in this region, and the Ukrainian Armed Forces captured more than 600 occupiers.
The President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said that Russia had withdrawn approximately 60 000 of its troops from other areas of the front in Ukraine to the Kursk region.
For self-defense, the Ukrainian military formed a buffer zone on the territory of the Kursk region. On August 15, Ukraine created the first military command post there.