Russians In Kursk Stood Down To Rest. So Ukrainians Counterattacked.

In August, a strong Ukrainian force eventually numbering around 20,000 troops invaded Kursk Oblast in western Russia, aiming to draw Russian forces away from the front line in eastern Ukraine while also seizing part of the oblast as a bargaining chip for any future ceasefire negotiations.

Three months later, an even stronger Russian and North Korean force—60,000 people in all—counterattacked. But the Russians and North Koreans attacked day after day along the same predictable routes, ultimately losing a third of their manpower without fully ejecting the Ukrainians from their 250-square-mile salient, anchored by the town of Sudzha.

Exhausted, the Russian and North Korean field army took “an operational pause” on or just before Feb. 5, the Ukrainian Center for Defense Strategies reported. Russian regiments needed time to induct fresh troops and replacement vehicles; the 12,000-soldier North Korean corps in Kursk was expected to rotate in a fresh regiment or two with a few thousand troops, CDS reported.

Taking advantage of the pause, the Ukrainian Siversk Operational Tactical Group in Kursk attacked on Thursday—and quickly advanced as far as three miles along several axes on the southeastern edge of the salient. According to CDS, the Siversk group advanced southwest of Makhnovka and north and east of Cherkasskya Konopelka along the Sudzha-Oboyan highway.

They captured at least two settlements: Kolmakov and Fanaseevka. CDS noted ongoing fighting in Cherkasskya Konopelka, but if that’s true, the Russians in the settlement have been bypassed by the bulk of the Ukrainian tactical group. That implies they’ve been cut off from the main Russian force farther to the east, including the battered 810th Naval Infantry Brigade.

Listening in on Russian channels, the Estonian analyst WarTranslated kept tabs on the Russians’ reaction to the swift Ukrainian assaults. The Russians reported four waves of Ukrainian forces. Russian drone feeds depicted long, widely spaced columns of Ukrainian mine-resistant trucks and other vehicles speeding along the Sudzha-Oboyan highway.

The Russians flung explosive first-person-view drones at the Ukrainian force. Some of the FPVs missed, possibly thwarted by Ukrainian jamming, Russian inexperience or both.

Other drones hit. The Ukrainians abandoned a BMP tracked fighting vehicle, a VAB wheeled armored personnel carrier, at least one mine-resistant truck and a couple of tanks. But the losses didn’t slow the assault. Rolling through Fanaseevka, the Ukrainian vehicles dropped off their infantry in the trees east of the settlement.

Russian artillery dialed in. And on the first night of the Ukrainian operation, North Korean troops—who reportedly had been in the process of withdrawing from Kursk—turned around and counterattacked in groups of 20, according to Constantine, a Ukrainian veteran and blogger who relays reports from Ukrainian troops on the front line.

The fighting rages on, but the analysts who update the definitive Ukraine Control Map were sufficiently confident in Ukrainian advances to mark them on the map. For the first day in many weeks, the Ukrainian salient in Kursk has gotten bigger, not smaller.