AROUND 10,000 Ukrainian soldiers face encirclement having been left trapped and fighting blind in Russia.
Kyiv has been working hard to maintain control over the occupied Kursk region in order to have a strong position for potential peace negotiations that are expected to take place as early as next week in Saudi Arabia.
But now it looks like their fragile grip the Russian region – which they seized with such fanfare last year – could be slipping away from them.
Ukranian forces are reportedly considering pulling back from Kursk and mounting a retreat over the border.
They risk being surrounded as Russia makes gains in the south east and pounds their supply lines.
Embattled troops face an assault from a new wave of more advanced Russian drones and kamikaze assaults by North Korean storm brigades.
Ukraine is facing an advantage that Russia has long endured over its enemy – sheer manpower and endless waves for the meat grinder.
Some sources have blamed the advances over the last few days on the suspension of US intelligence by Donald Trump.
Trump’s team argue they are trying to stop the war – insisting they trying to “take a step back” as they play peacemaker.
The Kursk offensive – the first time since World War 2 a power has invaded Russia – has reportedly been the worst hit by the freeze.
A Ukrainian source told TIME: “Not only Kursk, in all Russian territory there are problems now.”
Without US intelligence, Kyiv’s military have seen their ability to use long to mid-range missiles severely blunted.
And they now struggle to detect longer-range Russian strikes using strategic bombers.
Russia has already seized the eastern flank on the Kursk front – and are believed to be preparing assaults on the western edge.
The two points of the horseshoe could meet – cutting of Ukrainian forces still in Kursk unless they withdraw.
Recent reports suggest that on Friday, a large portion of the Ukrainian forces in Russia were almost completely surrounded, as indicated by information from a Ukrainian military blog.
The forces of President Vladimir Putin have been making advancements in Sudzha, which is located approximately seven miles inside Russia, after crossing the border into Ukraine’s Sumy Oblast from the northern side.
Russian troops have also been pressuring Ukraine‘s positions in the border area with Sumy region and moved to attempt to block supplies to Ukrainian forces inside Kursk.
Sudzha sits in the vital Kursk region which Ukraine seized part of last summer in a humiliating loss for Putin, and has served as leverage for Zelensky’s nation in potential peace talks to end the war.
They just sweep us away, advancing in groups of 50 North Koreans while we have only six men on our positions
Over 12,000 troops were sent by North Korea in an embarrassing attempt to bolster Putin’s dwindling forces following the surprise offensive.
But Kim Jong-un‘s troops were able to work alongside well-trained Russian drone units to make chilling advances, shielded by their relentless artillery fire and fiber-optic drones.
Commander of a Ukrainian communications unit Oleskii told The New York Times: “It’s true, we can’t stop them.
“They just sweep us away, advancing in groups of 50 North Koreans while we have only six men on our positions.
“Decisions are being made here, but I don’t know how effective they will be.”
Ukrainian soldiers said their lines were broken south of Kurylivka after Russian troops were able to cross a river in January.
By early March, there were too many North Koreans which resulted in Ukrainian forces retreating along designated defence lines, according to Zelensky’s soldiers.
When Russia brought in the thousands of North Koreans to join the fight, Kim’s nation was already supplying it with millions of artillery shells – which Putin was in desperate need of – alongside artillery and ballistic missiles.
After Russian forces destroyed Ukrainian troops’s logistics in Kursk Oblast, they began to doubt their ability to hold the defence – and favour withdrawal to avoid being surrounded.
A junior sergeant told The Telegraph: “We want to avoid losses. The fear of encirclement is real.”
The last remaining troops close to the Russian border are connected by a chilling corridor around one kilometre long and less than 500 metres wide at its narrowest.
And the only Ukrainian road into Sudzha now sits in range of Russia’s first person view drones – making it incredibly hard for Zelensky’s troops to hold the area or retreat.
On top of this, with all the bridges in the vicinity of Sudzha destroyed, Ukrainian troops are cut off from ammunition and fuel supplies, a source told Kyiv Independent.
Military analyst Pasi Paroinen said: “The situation [in Kursk] is very bad.
“Now there is not much left until Ukrainian forces will either be encircled or forced to withdraw.
“And withdrawal would mean running a dangerous gauntlet, where the forces would be constantly threatened by Russian drones and artillery.
“If Ukrainian forces are not able to restore the situation quickly, this could be the moment where the Kursk salient begins to finally close into an encircled pocket.”
Elite Ukrainian units remain active in Kursk Oblast, like the the 95th Air Assault Brigade, the 115th Mechanised Brigade and the 8th Separate Special Purpose Regiment.
The extreme Russian advance on the potential bargaining chip came a mere few days after the US axed intelligence sharing to Ukraine -leaving Kyiv’s troops “fighting blind”.
Doing so has also spiked the possibility that Zelensky’s forces may be forced into a humiliating retreat back into Ukraine – or risk being captured or killed.
With surveillance now sitting at an all-time-low, the US intelligence halt has allowed Russians to operate more freely and plan brutal attacks that Ukraine would have no knowledge of, according to experts.
Alongside the intelligence axe, the US also escalated the pressure on Ukraine to reach a peace deal with Russia by blocking the country’s access to satellite imagery.
Key images of the battlefield, taken by US firm Maxar, are no longer be available for Ukraine to see, having been used to track Russian troop movements and assess damage after devastating air strikes.
In a statement, Maxar said the decision was in line with US President Trump’s wishes.
And on Thursday, Russia launched a “massive” missile and drone strike on Ukrainian gas facilities overnight, causing Poland to scramble jets to secure its airspace.
The savage strikes were launched on cities and regions across the country, including dozens of ship-launched Kalibr and strategic bomber-launched Kh-101 missiles.
In Odesa, port warehouses storing ammunition were devastatingly struck, along with power substations.
The NATO warplanes were on alert to shoot down any Russian missiles entering Polish airspace.
It came a mere few hours after Zelensky said his first priority is for Russia and Ukraine to agree “a ceasefire in the sky” and sea following Thursday’s emergency EU summit.
But more devastation was to follow as on Friday, at least 21 were killed by Russian strikes in another overnight blitz in the Donetsk region.
President Zelensky accused Vladimir Putin of using “vile and inhumane tactics”, intentionally targeting emergency services who arrived at the scene of the first strike with a second missile.
Other attacks were simultaneously launched in the Kharkiv region in the north-east of the country, causing more death and destruction.
It came just hours after President Donald Trump issued a crippling threat telling him to stop “pounding” Ukraine.
Next week in Saudi Arabia, senior Ukrainian and US officials will discuss plans for a partial truce as well as a large-scale prisoner exchange between Kyiv and Moscow.
There was no official confirmation of the Russian thrust from the Russian Defence Ministry or the Ukrainian military, both of which tend to report battlefield changes with a delay.
Ukraine invasion of the Kursk region
Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk last August represented the most serious attack on Russian territory since the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941.
Just one week into the incursion, Kyiv claimed to have captured a formidable 1,000 square kilometres of Russian soil – more than what Putin was able to seize in the past year.
Zelensky said it was aimed at trying to ease pressure on Ukrainian troops defending their own country from Vlad’s forces in the east by forcing Moscow to divert resources to defend its own territory.
It also provided Kyiv with a potential bargaining chip in future peace talks.
The incursion left Putin incredibly red-faced and raised uncomfortable questions about its ability to protect its own borders.
The Russian dictator has repeatedly said his forces would regain full control of Kursk by force and rejected any idea of making it part of wider future talks.
