According to military analysts and soldiers, Ukrainian forces withdrew from everyone except for a small piece of land in Russia's Kursk region as a months-long campaign to seize and occupy Russia's territory appears to be coming to an end in the face of a Moscow counterattack.
At the height of the attack, Ukrainian forces ruled about 500 square miles of Russian territory. By Sunday it had been clinging to narrow land along the Russian-Ukrainian border, according to Pasi Paroynen, a military analyst with Finland-based Blackbird Group.
“The end of the fight is coming,” Paroynen said in a phone interview.
The amount of Russian territory still under Ukraine's control could not be independently confirmed, and soldiers reported fierce battles in the region. However, amid a rapid Russian advance, backed by merciless airstrikes and drone attacks, last week Ukrainian forces retreated from several villages in the Kursk region and Sudaschha, the main town under their control.
The Ukrainian military commander said the troops had used hillsides to gain better fire control over approaching Russian troops, returning to what is known as more defensible ground within Russia along the border. On Sunday, it released a map of the battlefield showing small pieces of land that Ukraine still controls in the Kursk region.
However, it remains unclear how long the Ukrainian military will be able to hold the patch.
The ongoing battle in Kursk is not about retaining Russian territory now, but about dominating the highest defensive positions to prevent Russians from being forced into the Smie region of Ukraine and opening new fronts in the war.
“We continue to hold positions at Kursk Front,” the attacking platoon commander, who asked to be identified only at the call sign Boroda, said over the phone. “The only difference is that our position has shifted significantly to the border.”
Although Ukraine's retreat from most of the Kursk region was quick, military experts said it came months after the Russian attacks and bombings.
“What happened in the past few months has been a formative operation to set the conditions for a successful push,” said Austrian military analyst Franz Stephen Gadi, who travels to Ukraine's Smie region at the border with Kursk last month to speak with Ukrainian commanders.
Starting in December, Russian troops, strengthened by newly deployed North Korean forces, launched repeated attacks on the bulging flanks held by Ukraine in the Kursk region. By mid-February, they had advanced to Sudzha within five miles of Ukraine's main supply routes, allowing them to target the roads with a pack of drones.
Later last week, the Russian Ministry of Defense claimed it had regained Suda. On Saturday, Russian troops said they had taken two villages outside the town.
Unlike previous setbacks by Kiev's troops elsewhere, like parts of eastern Ukraine, military analysts said what happened in Kursk was relatively orderly, and despite the opposition claims of Russian President Vladimir V. Putin and Trump, it did not lead to a siege of many troops.
“There was no threat to a siege of the Ukrainian military, and there is no evidence that it is suggested not to do so,” said Serhii Kuzan, chairman of the Ukrainian Centre for Security and Cooperation, a non-government research group.
Kiev wanted to use the control of Russian lands in Kursk as leverage in negotiations to end the war. Ukraine has agreed to support a one-month US-backed ceasefire, as long as Russia is doing the same thing. The Kremlin has not yet agreed, and it appears that they are extending negotiations over the ceasefire that Washington and Kiev proposed with conditions last week.
Trump's special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkov, who also worked as an interlocutor with Russia, told CNN on Sunday that he hopes the president will talk to Putin this week. Witkov said he had held a positive meeting with Putin last week, which lasted three to four hours. He refused to share details of their conversation, but he said he remained optimistic that the deal was within reach.
The State Department came after Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei V. Lavrov said on Saturday they had spoken over the phone about “next steps” without providing details.
Nataliya Vasilyeva and Tyler Pager contributed to the report.
