Russian special forces have crawled in a gas pipeline to strike Ukrainian rear units in the Kursk region, admitted the Ukrainian army.
ADVERTISEMENTSpecial forces rampant through an unused 1.4 meter -wide unused gas pipeline to attack Ukrainian forces in Sudzha in the Kursk region first seemed improbable. But now Ukraine’s general staff have confirmed that this had really happened.
The daring plan came as Moscow moves to take up parts of his border province that Kyiv seized in a shock offensive.
According to Telegram articles by a Pro-Kremlin blogger of Ukrainian origin, Russian soldiers have traveled about 15 kilometers inside the pipeline, which Moscow had until recently used to send gas to Europe. Some Russian troops had spent several days in the pipe before hitting Ukrainian rear units near the city of Sudzha, said blogger Yuri Podolyaka.
The city had some 5,000 inhabitants before the Russian invasion of February 2022 in Ukraine, and houses major gas transfer and measurement stations along the pipeline, formerly a major outlet for Russian natural gas exports via Ukrainian territory.
Another war blogger, who uses the alias two majors, said that ferocious fights were underway for Sudzha and that the Russian forces managed to enter the city by a gas pipeline. The Russian telegram channels have shown photos of what they said to be special forces agents, wearing gas masks and moving along what looked like a large pipe.
The Ukraine staff confirmed on Saturday evening that the Russian “Sabotage and Aggression Grands” had used the pipeline in order to take a foothold outside Southzha. In a telegram post, he said that Russian troops had been “detected in a timely manner” and that Ukraine responded with rockets and artillery.
“Currently, Russian special forces are detected, blocked and destroyed. Enemy losses in Sudzha are very high, ”reported the general staff.
Ukraine launched in August a daring cross -border foray into Kursk, in what marked the largest attack on Russian territory since the Second World War. In a few days, the Ukrainian units had captured 1,000 square kilometers of territory, including the strategic border city in Southzha, and made hundreds of Russian war prisoners.
According to Kyiv, the operation was aimed at winning a negotiation program during future peace talks and forcing Russia to divert the troops from its grinding offensive in eastern Ukraine.
But months after the Thunder Run of Ukraine, its soldiers in Kursk are tired and bloodied by incessant assaults of more than 50,000 soldiers, some of them from Russia Ally North Korea. Tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers run the risk of being surrounded by open source cards in the battlefield.
On Sunday, the Russian Defense Ministry reported that its troops had taken the village of Lebedevka, about 12 kilometers north-west of Southzha, and inflicted defeats on several Ukrainian units in and near the city. He did not specify when these clashes took place exactly. Ukraine did not immediately comment on the statements of the Russian Ministry.
France announces a new assistance package for Ukraine
Meanwhile, the French Minister of Defense, Sébastien Lecornu, said on Sunday that France would use the benefits of frozen Russian assets to finance an additional set of 195 million euros in weapons for Ukraine, the last of a series of deliveries of military aid funded by the mechanism.
In an interview with the newspaper La Tribune Didanche, Lecornu said that Paris will send new 155 mm artillery shells and slippery bombs for Mirage 2000 fighter planes which he previously given to Ukraine.
This decision provoked an angry response from the President of the Russian Parliament, Vyacheslav Volodin. A declaration of the press service of the state of Duma quoted Volodin saying that Paris “will respond to its actions” and will possibly have to return what Volodin called the “stolen” funds.
Ukrainian drones target Russian oil infrastructure
Elsewhere, Russian officials and telegrams have indicated that Ukrainian drones were targeting oil infrastructure in the south and center of Russia overnight before Sunday. A drone struck an oil depot in Cheboksary, a Russian city on the Volga river about 1,000 kilometers from the border, local governor reported. According to Oleg Nikolaev, no one was injured but the deposit needed reconstruction work.
ADVERTISEMENTImages circulated on the Russian telegram channels to what seemed to be a fire to one of the largest oil refineries in Russia, in the southern city of Ryazan. Shot, an information channel on Telegram, cited local residents saying that they had heard several night explosions near the refinery. Local Governor Pavel Malkov said Ukrainian drones had been slaughtered nearby. He said there had been no victims or damage.
Ukraine immediately commented on any of the incidents.
