Early one morning in a part of Russia now controlled by Ukrainian forces, three members of a Ukrainian special operations unit jumped into their car. The rear windshield had been shattered the day before by explosives dropped from a Russian drone. They sped off towards Ukraine.
Six hours later, the soldiers arrived in Kyiv, carrying a valuable load: boxes of documents piled on the back seat. These were the results of a four-day mission into enemy territory. Among the documents were papers from the Russian interior ministry and military orders, seized from government buildings in Sudzha, the center of Ukraine’s surprise operation in the Kursk region, and from abandoned Russian trenches nearby.
“At the time, everything was a blur. It’s only afterward that you realize where you were and what you were doing,” said Artem, one of the soldiers, speaking at a roadside stop just hours after leaving Russian territory.
Ukraine’s ongoing incursion into Russia, now in its fourth week, has been surprisingly bold and has posed an unexpected challenge to the Kremlin. Suddenly, it is Russian flags being removed from administrative buildings, Russian civilians seeking shelter as foreign soldiers patrol their streets, and Russia scrambling to maintain control over its long-established borders.
Despite Ukrainian troops facing pressure elsewhere along the front lines, this advance into Russian territory has provided a much-needed morale boost within Ukraine, following months of grim news.
“They’re in a desperate David versus Goliath struggle, and this action taps into their rebellious spirit,” commented a Western diplomat in Kyiv, noting that the Kursk operation had significantly lifted the mood among Ukraine’s political elite.
Part of the initial enthusiasm stemmed from the sheer surprise of the operation. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his top military commander discussed the plans privately, involving only a few trusted individuals. “Based on our experience in this war so far, the fewer people know about an operation, the more successful it will be,” said Mykhailo Podolyak, a key aide to Zelensky, in an interview from Kyiv. “Very few people were aware of it in advance,” he added.
In Sumy, the closest Ukrainian city to the border, locals noticed a buildup of military personnel in the weeks leading up to the incursion but did not know the reason. “There aren’t many rental options in Sumy, and people were asking around for any available space where soldiers could stay. It was only when the operation began that the pieces started to fit together,” said Dmytro Tishchenko, CEO of cukr.city, a local news and culture website.
The troops themselves had no forewarning about the mission. “We thought we were being transferred here for defensive operations against a possible Russian attack,” said a soldier who had been in the area a week before the assault started.
Last week, Ukraine claimed control of nearly 1,300 square kilometers (500 square miles) of Russian territory, including 100 settlements—mostly small villages, but also the town of Sudzha, which had a population of 5,000 before the offensive. The road from Sumy to the border remains crowded with military vehicles, with soldiers riding everything from motorcycles to tanks into Russia.
According to Ukrainian soldiers, the streets of Sudzha are mostly empty, with a foul odor lingering from rotting produce in the late summer heat. Many residents fled further into Russia at the onset of the offensive, but those who stayed are now cut off, with no exit, no power, and no mobile reception. The Ukrainian soldiers patrolling the streets are their only source of information.
“We tell them Ukrainian forces have taken the city of Kursk and are marching toward Moscow, and that it’s time to learn Ukrainian,” joked a soldier who had recently been in the city. Soldiers rotate out of Sudzha with souvenirs—ranging from Russian flags and posters taken from official buildings to T-shirts featuring Vladimir Putin bought at Sudzha’s market—but they emphasize that they are not instilling the same fear that Russian occupiers imposed on Ukrainian towns.
Sudzha has been under complete Ukrainian control for two weeks now, but Russian drones remain a constant threat, making operations on the edges of the offensive quite nerve-wracking. In one incident, while clearing out an abandoned Russian trench, Artem saw what he thought was a fleeing Russian soldier and almost fired before realizing it was his own reflection in a mirror left in the trench. “You crawl through forests in the dark and suddenly realize you’re completely alone, deep inside enemy territory,” said Serhii, another team member.
For the moment, Ukraine’s advance appears to have stalled, but Russia has also not been able to reclaim the territory. Kyiv insists it has no desire to annex Russian land but aims to maintain control over what it has captured for now.
“We are not Russia; we don’t want to rewrite our constitution to include these territories… Our objectives are to push Russian artillery and other systems further away, destroy warehouses and other military infrastructure, and influence public opinion in Russia,” said Podolyak.
Many in Kyiv see the incursion as a signal to Ukraine’s international allies, especially as discussions about the potential for future negotiations with Russia grow louder.
“Ukraine is trying to gain leverage over Russia to ensure any negotiations are genuine, not just a capitulation disguised as talks,” said Alyona Getmanchuk, founder of the New Europe Center in Kyiv.
Podolyak initially dismissed the idea that Kyiv was considering future negotiations, but then added, “Russia is not a rational country. It could be forced to negotiate, but for that, you need actions like the Kursk operation.”
Getmanchuk noted that the operation, details of which Kyiv did not share with its Western allies in advance, was partly driven by frustration over repeated warnings from Washington about the risks of escalation. “The Kursk operation was a signal to ignore supposed ‘red lines’ that Ukraine should not cross,” she explained.
Another aim of the operation was to capture Russian soldiers and use them as bargaining chips to free some of the thousands of Ukrainians held in Russian prisons. Ukraine claims to have captured nearly 600 Russian soldiers from the Kursk region, many of whom were conscripts. A week ago, Ukraine exchanged 115 of them for the same number of Ukrainians held in Russia.
At a holding facility in the Sumy region, Russian prisoners expressed their shock at the war reaching Russian territory and their lack of preparation for combat. Some had arrived in the Kursk region only days or weeks before being captured. The Guardian spoke to more than a dozen Russian prisoners who agreed to talk without the presence of prison guards, but they are not quoted directly due to international conventions regarding prisoners of war.
“As a Ukrainian, I despise them, but I treat them how I want our prisoners to be treated in Russia,” said Volodymyr, the deputy head of the facility. “If we can use them to free our people, then I am satisfied,” he added.
While the Kursk operation has been a morale booster, there is still a keen awareness among many Ukrainian soldiers that the situation in the east of the country remains dire, with Russian forces slowly advancing on the city of Pokrovsk. If that advance continues, questions about whether the Kursk operation was worth it may grow louder.
For now, however, the operation remains a symbol of Ukrainian success on the battlefield. “We can use it to create a buffer zone along the border to reduce attacks on us. At the very least, we’ve captured prisoners to exchange and given our people something to celebrate,” said Artem.
