{"id":237233,"date":"2025-02-12T12:26:20","date_gmt":"2025-02-12T12:26:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/12\/the-fiercest-fighting-of-the-ukraine-war-may-be-in-russia\/"},"modified":"2025-02-12T12:26:20","modified_gmt":"2025-02-12T12:26:20","slug":"the-fiercest-fighting-of-the-ukraine-war-may-be-in-russia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/12\/the-fiercest-fighting-of-the-ukraine-war-may-be-in-russia\/","title":{"rendered":"The Fiercest Fighting of the Ukraine War May Be in Russia"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i3.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/02\/05\/multimedia\/00kursk-fighting-07-pmfl\/00kursk-fighting-07-pmfl-facebookJumbo-v2.jpg?ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"The Fiercest Fighting of the Ukraine War May Be in Russia\" title=\"The Fiercest Fighting of the Ukraine War May Be in Russia\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-1\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">A Russian special forces commander served on four battlefronts across eastern Ukraine after joining Russia\u2019s invasion nearly three years ago. He said the most ferocious fighting he has seen is now unfolding back home, as the Russian Army he serves struggles to liberate a sliver of national territory from Ukrainian forces.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The protracted battle for the occupied Russian town of Sudzha and the surrounding countryside has unexpectedly emerged as one of the focal points of a war fought over the fate of the Ukrainian state. Both sides have committed a significant share of their limited reserves to control Sudzha, a once sleepy county seat in the Kursk region, near the two countries\u2019 border.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThese are the most brutal battles \u2014 I haven\u2019t seen anything like this during the entire special military operation,\u201d the commander, who leads about 200 men fighting in Kursk, said in an interview near the front line late last year, using the Kremlin\u2019s euphemism for the war. He requested that he be identified only by his call sign,Hades, according to military protocol.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-2\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Both sides see Kursk as must-have territory, an important element in the expected <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/01\/27\/world\/americas\/trump-putin-ukraine.html?searchResultPosition=1\" title=\"\">peace talks promised by President Trump<\/a>. Military analysts say the Ukrainian forces have since poured some of their best reserves into Kursk, hoping to use its conquest as a bargaining chip in negotiations.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-3\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">For President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, the Ukrainian incursion \u2014 the first invasion of Russian territory since World War II \u2014 has been an ongoing embarrassment. He is determined to push Ukraine out so he does not have to make any concession to get the territory back, and Moscow has deployed tens of thousands of <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/11\/10\/us\/politics\/russia-north-korea-troops-ukraine.html?searchResultPosition=1\" title=\"\">soldiers<\/a>, including conscripts and North Korean allies, to repel the invaders, according to U.S. officials.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ukrainians \u201cwanted to conduct the talks from a position of strength,\u201d Lt. Gen. Apti Alaudinov, the commander of the Akhmat special forces unit from <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/06\/16\/world\/europe\/chechnya-russia-ukraine-war.html?searchResultPosition=1\" title=\"\">Russia\u2019s Chechnya region<\/a>, said in an interview in the Kursk region in December. \u201cWhen the time comes for the talks, it is not clear if they can still say that they are here.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-4\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">With the stakes so high, Russian soldiers fighting in Kursk believe the fighting is about to become even bloodier.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWe are expecting Bakhmut 2.0,\u201d said Hades, the Russian commander serving in Akhmat, which is made up in large part from the remnants of Wagner paramilitaries.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Bakhmut is a Ukrainian town whose ruins <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/08\/26\/world\/europe\/prigozhin-ukraine-bakhmut-legacy.html?searchResultPosition=4\" title=\"\">Wagner captured in 2023 after a nine-month assault<\/a> at the cost of tens of thousands of casualties. The standoff was emblematic of Ukraine\u2019s stand-and-fight strategy even in the face of Russia\u2019s superior manpower and firepower.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Another Russian commander, who insisted on anonymity for security reasons, said the cost of a showdown would be staggering. The bloodshed, the casualties, it\u2019s \u201cunimaginable,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-5\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">A photographer working for The New York Times was given access to Kursk late last year and was allowed to interview and photograph Russian soldiers at a hospital and near the front line, as well as civilians, some who had fled their villages and others who stayed behind.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Some of the interviewed soldiers were Wagner veterans who joined Akhmat after the failed mutiny of the mercenaries\u2019 leader, Yevgeny V. Prigozhin. They said the Chechnya-based special forces unit most closely resembled the loose structure of their former paramilitary force.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Other interviewed soldiers were recent volunteers who joined to take advantage of rising sign-up bonuses. They said an opportunity to fight inside their own country provided an additional incentive to join a war whose broader goals or causes they struggled to articulate. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-6\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThis is our land, these are our people and our values,\u201d Aleksandr, a Russian contract soldier who was injured by a mortar fighting in Kursk, said in an interview at a medical center. \u201cWe must fight for them.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-7\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Since the Ukrainian invasion began six months ago, both sides have taken heavy losses in Kursk\u2019s exposed, flat terrain punctuated by small villages, although the armies closely guard <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/01\/23\/world\/europe\/ukraine-russia-soldiers-loss.html\" title=\"\">their casualty rates<\/a>. Russia, in glacial advances, has been able to recover about 60 percent of about 500 square miles initially captured by Ukraine.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-8\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Between the two armies are an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 Russian civilians, who were trapped by the speed of the initial Ukrainian advance and the Russian government\u2019s failure to mount an evacuation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The two sides have blamed each other for failing to provide conditions for the remaining residents to leave, forcing those civilians to endure the Russian winter with dwindling food supplies and without running water, heating or electricity. As the Russian forces close in, they are being subjected to escalating bombardment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The analysts and relatives of Sudzha residents fear that the Russian military\u2019s reliance on heavy bombing and Ukraine\u2019s determination to defend the town threaten a humanitarian catastrophe at a level not seen in Russia since the civil war in Chechnya in the 1990s. By late January, Russian forces stood just a few miles from the town center.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In Ukraine, the Russian invasion has caused civilian suffering on a much larger scale, with strikes on residential buildings, hospitals, churches and an array of energy facilities.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Pasi Paroinen, a military analyst at Finland-based research company Black Bird Group, said the Russian assault on Sudzha would be costly for both soldiers and civilians, because Ukraine had deployed in Kursk its strongest force.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-9\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Lyubov, a mother of four, is part of a group of Kursk residents who for months have been publicly calling for a humanitarian corridor to evacuate relatives trapped in Sudzha. She said she feared that the impeding assault on the town would leave her parents and others there with little chance of survival.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cBy the time Russian troops enter the settlements, only ruins and ashes remain of the houses,\u201d she said in an interview, adding: \u201cThis is an awful rescue system.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-10\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The apocalyptic scenes described by civilians who have escaped Sudzha\u2019s surrounding villages foreshadow the intensity of the impending battle for the town.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In interviews, these civilians provided mixed accounts of Ukrainian occupation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Zoya, 64, described the initial friendliness of Ukrainian soldiers who occupied her village, Pogrebki, on Aug. 12. She said the first soldiers who came to her house gave her husband a pack of cigarettes and offered their help.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThey were really nice lads,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">(Zola and other civilians who were interviewed are being identified by their first names only to protect them against Russian censorship laws). <\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">That camaraderie waned as the fighting intensified, according to those who fled. The Ukrainian soldiers began to see Russian civilians as a hindrance \u2014 or worse, as potential informers who could give away their positions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Zoya and her husband ran out of food and subsisted on occasional frozen potatoes that they dug out from their garden. During one of those sorties, a drone exploded near her husband. He died in her arms minutes later, she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-11\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Zoya spent most of her time sheltering from constant bombing in her basement, a stretch of darkness that made her hallucinate and temporarily lose her sense of sight and time. Hunger eventually drove her to attempt an escape.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThere was nowhere left to live \u2014 it was so scary there, everything was destroyed,\u201d she said in an interview.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">She said she walked five miles through fields littered with destroyed Russian tanks and dead soldiers before reaching the Russian positions in November.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Another woman named Natalia, 69, who uses a wheelchair, recounted a similar experience.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">She said Ukrainian soldiers initially brought her bread, water and insulin for her diabetes after occupying her village of Novoivanovka. The soldiers stopped occasionally to chat over a cup of tea.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The treatment worsened as the fighting drew closer.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-12\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">She said in an interview that her husband had died after being summarily shot by a Ukrainian soldier. Her account could not be independently verified and Ukraine has repeatedly said that it adheres to humanitarian laws in Kursk.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">By November, Natalia was sheltering in a basement in no man\u2019s land. One day, she said, a Russian reconnaissance group reached her house and told her that her only chance of survival was escape.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThey said, \u2018Please leave, however you can \u2014 otherwise you will die,\u2019\u201d said Natalia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">She said other surviving residents helped to carry her to another village, where their group was eventually rescued by Russian troops.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-13\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Sudzha residents now fear similar hardships are coming to their trapped relatives.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Earlier in February, a missile hit Sudzha\u2019s boarding school, which sheltered about 100 people displaced from the outlying villages. Both sides have blamed each other for the strike. Ukraine has released evidence that appears to show that Russia was responsible.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The attack killed at least four people; Ukrainian soldiers evacuated survivors to Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWe don\u2019t know where the rocket came from,\u201d said Yulia, a Russian woman whose parents survived the strike. She said that Ukrainian soldiers \u201ccame and helped dig people from the rubble, and saved our people.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">A Russian man named Sergei said that video messages from family in the town had sometimes reached him following its occupation. Over the months, he said, he watched their hair grow white, their bodies grow thin and the sounds of explosions grow louder.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cI\u2019m sorry that I am crying,\u201d said his sister in a video that was viewed by The Times, congratulating Sergei on his birthday. \u201cI wish I could\u2019ve done it in person, at least by telephone. You have always complained that I call too little.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cMother can\u2019t congratulate you, because she struggles to come up the stairs. She is almost always in the basement,\u201d the sister added. \u201cShe joins my congratulations.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-14\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Eventually, the videos became too painful to watch, said Sergei, leading him to switch to passing occasional texts.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-15\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-798hid etfikam0\">Constant M\u00e9heut<!-- --> and <!-- -->Yurii Shyvala<!-- --> contributed reporting from Kyiv and <!-- -->Milana Mazaeva<!-- --> from Tbilisi, Georgia.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/02\/12\/world\/europe\/kursk-russia-war-ukraine.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Russian special forces commander served on four battlefronts across eastern Ukraine after joining Russia\u2019s invasion nearly three years ago. He said the most ferocious fighting he has seen is now unfolding back home, as the Russian Army he serves struggles to liberate a sliver of national territory from Ukrainian forces. The protracted battle for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":237234,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/02\/05\/multimedia\/00kursk-fighting-07-pmfl\/00kursk-fighting-07-pmfl-facebookJumbo-v2.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[184982,137233,48543,75,164378,137131,202,1130,184981,3102],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237233"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237233"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":237235,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237233\/revisions\/237235"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}