The Collapse of Kursk
Russian heroes liberate 12 villages in 24 hours, MSM blames Trump
[A mashup of Military Summary and a corrected map from the NYT.]
Published: 2025-03-12
Updated 2025-03-12: Transcript and video of interview with Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov by “US bloggers” added to sources.
The Third Time is Not Lucky: Don’t Invade Russia
In early August, 2024, Ukraine invaded the Kursk oblast of Russia like the heroes of their Nazi hero, Stepan Bandera, around 80 years previously.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) deployed reserved elite units with their equipment, and other units from existing lines of contact in the Donbas. Around 20 000 soldiers were initially poured into the new front created by the invasion. Among the AFU were mercenaries from at least Poland and the US. The operation relied on NATO intelligence, used NATO equipment, NATO money to pay the AFU’s wages and was conceived by the British. Over time the force was repeatedly re-reinforced to a total number estimated at well over 70 000. [Ed: One day after the publication of this article Russian Chief of the General Staff stated that the invaders suffered more than 67 000 casualties.]
Recent counter-attacks by the AFU in Toretsk and on the southern defense perimeter of Pokrovsk, to buoy European support for the failed war, used two brigades which the AFU took from Kursk back to the Donbas, stated Mercouris (see Sources). This repeat stupidity speaks of the lack of forces at the AFU's disposal. The removal of troops from the Donbas to invade Russia contributed toward the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation’s breakthrough in Donbas in the rout of Avdiivka.
The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (AFRF) have been inexorably compressing the Kursk invasion back to its origin in Sudzha. It established drone control over the main supply road, H07 to/from Sumy, a month ago, drastically limiting the AFU’s logistics. A fortnight or so thereafter, the AFRF had achieved the same for the only other supply route from the Ukrainian oblast of Sumy into Sudzha, their last command centre and logistics depot in Kursk.
[The grey area is the long section of the H07 which could be renamed as the Russian Drone Highway upon which hundreds of vehicles have been destroyed by drone attacks.]
Seeing that the AFU was logistically stressed and had just removed two of its better brigades, the AFRF planned a behind-enemy-lines Spetsnaz operation utilizing a gas pipeline as a covert route to inject troops. Pipelines had been used twice before by Russia during the war. The one in Avdiivka led to its collapse and rout, which in turn led the AFRF to the outskirts of Pokrovsk.
This latest operation, "Throw through the pipes", began using a huge missile attack on gas storage all over Ukraine as cover for the destruction of key pumping stations in Poltava. Their destruction ensured that when the AFRF's special forces were in the selected pipeline they could not be suffocated and poisoned by a Ukrainian reverse gas flow attack. Nobody but a tiny section of the AFRF knew that this was the operatoinal objective of the attack at the time.
[Graphic of the AFRF’s missile attacks on gas storage facilites in Ukraine on 2025-03-07]
For the behind enemy lines operation the AFRF selected 800 soldiers from 6 different brigades, including the Chechen "Akhmat" Spetsnaz Brigade. Their job was to crawl or stoop walk over 12 Km through the 1.5 m diameter pipeline to the rear position in the north of Sudzha agglomeration. For two days they then had to wait in the fetid pipeline for their orders to deploy. The AFRF was completing preparations for the trap which the Spetsnaz would spring.
The AFRF used drones to identify at least one key bridge which the AFU had wired with explosives to be blown after a final retreat. The AFRF destroyed the bridge with drones, igniting explosives placed by the AFU. The next day, the trap was sprung when the Spetsnaz sprang from their subterranean deployment.
The rest is history. The northern defensive perimeter, from west to east, which Ukraine was being slowly forced to concede, 10 kilometres out from Sudzha, collapsed in hours.
Retreating forces were stopped by destroyed bridges. One convoy was obliterated in a textbook, prepared, anti-convoy artillery attack. Russian artillery knew where the convoys would stop. They just needed to know when they were halted. The fleeing Ukrainians were forced to stop at a prepared artillery ambush.
AFU units, abandoned by their fellow soldiers with vehicles, surrendered to AFRF ground forces that advanced into the collapsing defense lines. 12 villages were captured in hours.
While the bravery of the Spetsnaz forces deserves commendation, this was a whole of force operation. Russian military intelligence identified the opportunity. Precision missilery secured it. Drone operators created dead ends. Spetsnaz sprang the trap. Artillery and drone operators destroyed fleeing units caught in pre-prepared dead-ends. And the perimeter AFRF regular troops moved through the abandoned territory, liberating it, and capturing surrendering AFU units.
The AFU invaded Russia and failed to achieve any significant objective other than temporarily held territory. Six months later, the AFU and its international mercenaries are about to be eradicated from Kursk, for the total loss of what must be over 50 000 soldiers. For nothing.
This is how one loses a war.
One could be tempted to ask why European and US citizens are not outraged over the plain incompetence of the AFU on top of the corruption of their political leadership? The media they read haven't been informed of it. In Europe, they don’t even get to read what the other side is reporting.
I know, I was living in Europe when the SMO began and the entire continent blocked Russian media. Of course, some of us know more about how the internet works than legislators, so I tried to help.
Western Media
Newsweek laid the blame for the collapse in Kursk on US President Trump for stopping intelligence sharing. There was no mention of the folly of Ukraine invading Russia in the first place. No credit was given to the daring of the Russian forces. Instead, "noteworthy", a word from 2014 coup-architect Victoria Nuland's husband's "Institute for the Study of War", was plucked to bind the collapse to the coincidence of the US pausing sharing its military targeting data with Ukraine.
[Newsweek]
No mention was made that the Spetsnaz forces were under heavy Ukrainian artillery fire soon after leaving their pipes, and that it was this, artillery in the rear, which spooked the nervous AFU forces on perimeter defense. Targeting data had nothing whatsoever to do with the rout.
The Sun, in the UK, followed the same script quoting the same "Institute" and then fell for the same trap into which the NATO led force in Ukraine fell. The Sun attempted to counter the disastrous collapse in Kursk with the good news of recent counter-offensives in Pokrovsk and Toretsk. They tried this because they do not know that these forces were pulled from Kursk which created the opportunity (along with the logistics pressure) for the pipeline operation.
[The Sun]
These "reporters" are not only spewing BS, but do not know what is going on either.
Independent Media
Out here in the new media space, we're reporting on reality as best we can based on open source intelligence, ignoring those we know to be paid shills and focusing on reliable data and commentators.
Simplicius' article, Military Summary's videos, and The Duran's comments (see Sources) provide the details, the results and the context of "Throw through the pipes".
Alexander Mercouris phrased the moment clearly. Ukraine had already lost the war. It cannot afford to mount counter attacks. It lacks the men. The AFU just made the situation worse by repositioning forces, again, for operations to yield media optics. Alternatively, when Russia launches counter attacks they are devastating: the Rout of Avdiivka, the Collapse of Kursk.
European political leaders are stuck in the lies issued by the corrupt Ukrainian government they pay, formerly echoed by USAID funded "independent" media in Kiev, and now just issued by the same old reliable hacks at Newsweek, The Sun and elsewhere.
Washing Machine Chips and Shovels
Ukraine just launched a drone attack on Russia, including the Moscow oblast, as its way of attempting to use the media to win the war. 337 drones were shot down by Russia's world leading missile defense system. Moscow has the S-500, with some areas having the S-550.
[Russian figures of the downing of drones, from Stephen Bryen’s article on the train wreck of discussions for a peace held between the US and Ukraine in Riyadh just after Ukraine launched the drones to damage the talks.]
Simplicius captured the diplomatic pantomime in Riyadh with the X/Twitter blather which followed it:
The latest Ukraining terrorist attacks, as Larry Jonson correctly described them, are more media optics. Dima, from Military Summary, noted that the results of both the collapse in Kursk, and the attacks on Moscow and elsewhere, will likely be increased lines at volunteer stations as Russian men sign contracts with the Ministry of Defense.
Russia is about to, once again, eject European Nazis from its territory while European “leaders” chant support for their expired political leader, Zelensky, and threaten to bankrupt their own countries in a new arms race in which they start two decades behind the Russians.
As Alastair Crooke wrote:
it is going to be extremely expensive, very politically costly, and it will fail.
[The frontlines in Sudzha, 2025-03-12.]
Postscript
For a long article on the whole failed Kursk campaign, see Big Serge’s excellent article.
or support this work via Buy Me A Coffee or Patreon.
Sources
Ukraine: Fighting to the Conclusion; Big Serge; Big Serge Thought; 2025-03-28
Europe faces a MAGA 'vibe-shift’ as Trump moves to his primordial objective – The Global Reset; Alastair Crooke; The Unz Review; 2025-03-11
Kursk Collapse Accelerates as Daring Pipeline Raid Shocks AFU; Simplicius; Simplicius' Garden of Knowledge; 2025-03-10
The Pipeline Raid Of Sudzha; b.; Moon of Alabama; 2025-03-11
Riyadh Negotiation is Without Zelensky (at least he is not at the table); Stephen Bryen; Weapons and Strategy; 2025-03-11
Hyping Drone Attacks in Moscow; Larry C. Johnson; SONAR21; 2025-03-11
Kursk Map Shows Ukraine's Salient Collapsing After US Blocks Intel Sharing; Newsweek; Archive.today; 2025-03-10
Chilling maps show Ukraine's frontline in occupied Russia 'collapse' in DAYS after Trump axes arms, intel & F16 support; The Sun; Archive.today; 2025-03-11
Russia Begins Assault on Ukrainian-Occupied Town of Sudzha in Kursk Region; NYT; Archive.today; 2025-03-11
Liberation of 12 settlements, Ukrainian losses: situation in Russia's Kursk Region; N/A; TASS; 2025-03-11
Three killed and 17 injured in massive Ukrainian drone strike on Moscow; Novaya Gazeta Europe; 2025-03-11
Air Defenses downed 337 Ukrainian drones over Russian regions - Defense Ministry; N/A; TASS; 2025-03-11
Europe is not enough, if the US stops helping Ukraine the war is over, Stephen Bryen, Weapons and Strategy, 2024-11-14
“Incidentally, the plan for the Kursk operation was cooked up by the British, but it did not contemplate a stalled operation and failure to reach key objectives, particularly the Kursk nuclear power plant.”
The Battle of Kursk; YesXorNo; 2024-08-10
The Rout of [the AFU in] Avdiivka; YesXorNo; 2024-02-23
Censorship: Rejecting a One-Sided Argument; YesXorNo; 2022-03-06
Collapse of Kursk: Narratives versus Reality; Glenn Diesen; Glenn's Substack; 2025-03-11
Diesen carefully exposes the “narrative trap” hidden in the AFU’s invasion of Kursk. It was a narrative driven campaign, to support funding and morale. That it would fail militarily was obvious. But, politically, the AFU could never withdraw. It was doomed from the outset — a narrative trap.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s interview to the US bloggers Mario Nawfal, Larry C.Johnson and Andrew Napolitano, Moscow, March 12, 2025 [Transcript]; N/A; The Ministry of Foreign Affairs; 2025-03-12
Thunder⚡️Russians Are Completing The Defeat Of Ukrainians In The Sudzha District🎖⚔️MS For 2025.03.11; Dima; Military Summary; 2025-03-11
Thunder⚡️Only A Few Kilometers Left🛣️📍A Treacherous Ceasefire🕊️🕵️♂️ Military Summary For 2025.03.12; Dima; Military Summary; 2025-03-12
Zelensky House of Cards in KURSK crumbles; Christoforou and Mercouris; The Duran; 2025-03-10
Col. Larry Wilkerson: Mass Ukrainian retreat from Sudzha! Trump’s Team Closing in on a Peace Deal?; Alkhorshid interviews Wilkerson; Dialogue Works; 2025-03-11
Copyleft: CC0
