Military, illustrative photo
The Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Kursk region have adopted a new strategy—rapid advance and encirclement of Russian troops. Roman Pohorilyi, co-founder and analyst of the DeepState project, discussed this on Hromadske Radio on the morning of Wednesday, September 18.
A few days ago, DeepState reported that Russian forces had been surrounded for some time in the village of Kremiane in the Kursk region. At that time, analysts noted that since the first days of the Kursk operation, the enemy in this village had effectively been in an operational encirclement. Recently, the group was completely surrounded. At the same time, there have been periodic successful attempts by the Russians to break through with ammunition and food.
According to Pohorilyi, the Ukrainian Armed Forces in Kremiane have two options: either spend time, effort, and resources to clear the village of Russians, or encircle the enemy and gradually destroy them, maintaining control of the situation.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces chose to encircle the Russian troops in Kremiane.
At the same time, Pohorilyi pointed out that the Russians have become more active on the western flank of the territory in the Kursk region controlled by Ukrainian forces. They have repeatedly attempted to storm Ukrainian positions from the settlements of Snahost and Lyubymivka. This refutes the claim that the Ukrainian Armed Forces had fully encircled Russian troops on the western flank.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Armed Forces maintain fire control over the crossings of the Seim River. Their task there is to repel Russian assaults, said Pohorilyi.
He also described how the Russians are moving troops into the Kursk region. According to Pohorilyi, they are not deploying entire brigades, but rather individual battalions from both occupied Ukrainian territories and Russia. Specifically, Russian forces have redeployed troops from Robotyno, Krynky, northern Kharkiv, and Luhansk regions to Kursk. Pohorilyi emphasized that Russia has a source of forces for counterattacks in the Kursk region, so it is not realistic to expect them to withdraw from the Pokrovsk or Toretsk areas. The Russians have also recaptured several settlements in the Kursk region that were previously controlled by the Ukrainian Armed Forces. However, Ukrainian forces continue to control an area of more than 1,000 square kilometers in the Kursk region. Pohorilyi stressed that this figure is likely to change. He notes that the situation in the region is very dynamic.
“We should remember that everything is changing hands there. In some places, the Russians are fighting back; in others, we are making progress. So, it’s hard to give a stable number», — explained Roman Pohorilyi, co-founder and analyst of the DeepState project.
Addressing the challenges faced by the Ukrainian military in the Kursk region, he noted that Russian helicopters are particularly problematic.
“These are the words of the soldiers themselves. They say that if we had the means to take them down and destroy them, it would change the course of this operation», — Pohorilyi said.