A Ukrainian soldier who took part in the first forays of last week’s Kursk incursion said his unit caught Russian troops completely by surprise as the latter were having coffee.
His account, published by The Financial Times, adds to a chorus of assessments that Russia had been unprepared and blindsided by Ukraine’s rare cross-border attack on August 6.
The FT wrote that the soldier, identified as Volodymyr, was part of a unit operating a US-provided Stryker armoured fighting vehicle.
Volodymyr told the outlet that his unit entered Kursk in the late morning of August 6, and soon found a group of Russian troops “sitting in the forest, drinking coffee at a table”.
“Then our Stryker drives right into their table,” he said, per the FT.
“We killed many of them on the first day. Because they were unarmed and didn’t expect us,” he added.
Volodymyr said “dozens” of other Russian troops surrendered afterward.
The FT’s Ukraine correspondent, Christopher Miller, wrote that he interviewed Volodymyr’s crew on Sunday when they returned to Ukraine.
Their Stryker had been struck by a rocket-propelled grenade on Friday, which gave the driver a concussion, Miller reported.
Ukraine’s attack on Kursk has recentered global attention on the war to southern Russia, though fighting remains fierce and dire for Kyiv’s troops on the older front line in the east.
Ukrainian leaders claimed on Monday to have seized 1,000 square kilometres (380 square miles) of Russian soil, as well as 74 villages and towns.
The fog of war has made it difficult to assess the true progress of day-to-day battle – unusual for a conflict that’s been characterised by an excess of war footage posted online. Ukraine said nothing officially about its attack for days, even after its forces were spotted fighting miles past Russian defensive lines.
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Meanwhile, the Kremlin has, since the initial days of the incursion, called the Ukrainian attack a “terror” operation and repeatedly said it had stopped Kyiv’s advance.
But geolocated footage and reports from the ground suggest Ukraine is still pushing deeper into Kursk even after those claims. The speed at which Ukraine was able to force its way into Russia has surfaced new questions about the region’s military preparedness and intelligence.
“The Ukrainian operations across the border in the Kursk and, possibly, Belgorod regions have been of longer duration and reach than either the Russians or Ukrainians initially expected,” US Navy Ret. Vice Adm. Robert Murrett said in an email.
The Kremlin is still consolidating its defence of Kursk, with Russian leader Vladimir Putin vowing that Ukraine would receive a “worthy response.”
“The next two to three days will be critical for both sides as this ‘Battle of Kursk’ takes on additional significance,” added Murrett, who is now deputy director of Syracuse University’s Institute for Security Policy and Law.
Notably, Russian state media has not made any mention of an “invasion,” instead referring to a “situation” in the country’s south, according to the BBC’s Russia editor, Steve Rosenberg.
Press services for the Russian defence ministry and the Kremlin did not immediately respond to requests for comment sent outside regular business hours by Business Insider.
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