WORLD NEWS FOR MONTENEGRO DIASPORA
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AUTHOR: M.J.
Russia's military command expected Ukraine's incursion into its Kursk region and planned to prevent it for several months, according to documents the Ukrainian military said it confiscated from abandoned Russian positions in the region, the Guardian reports.
The revelation makes the confusion among Russian forces even more embarrassing after the Ukrainian attack in early August, the Guardian writes. The documents, provided to this British newspaper, also reveal Russia's concerns about morale in the Kursk military ranks, which intensified after the suicide of a soldier on the front who was said to be in a "long-term state of depression due to his service in the Russian army".
Unit commanders are instructed to ensure that soldiers consume Russian state media on a daily basis to maintain their "psychological condition."
The Guardian could not independently verify the authenticity of the documents, although they bear the hallmarks of genuine Russian military communications. In late August, the Guardian met with the Ukrainian special operations team that captured them, hours after they left Russian territory. The team said they took Russian Interior Ministry, FSB and military documents from buildings in the Kursk region and later gave the choice for inspection and photography.
Some of the documents are printed orders distributed to various units, while others are handwritten diaries recording events and problems at specific positions. The earliest entries date to late 2023, while the latest documents are from just six weeks before Ukraine began its incursion into the Kursk region on August 6.
The documents mainly come from units of the Russian 488th Guards Motorized Regiment, and especially the second company of its 17th battalion.
Ukraine's incursion into Kursk surprised Kiev's Western partners and many in the Ukrainian elite, as the planning was limited to a very small number of people. But Russian military documents contain months of warnings about a possible incursion into the area and an attempt to seize Suja, a town of 5,000 that has now been under Ukrainian occupation for more than a month.
The January 4 entry talks about the "potential for a breakthrough across the state border" by Ukrainian armed groups and orders increased training to prepare to repel any attack. On February 19, unit commanders were warned of Ukrainian plans to "rapidly push from the Sumy area into Russian territory, to a depth of 80 km, to establish a four-day 'corridor' before the arrival of the main body of the Ukrainian army on armored vehicles."
In mid-March, units on the border were ordered to reinforce defense lines and "organize additional unit and strongpoint command exercises related to proper defense organization" in preparation for a Ukrainian cross-border attack.
In mid-June, there was a more specific warning about Ukrainian plans "in the direction of Yunakivka-Sudza, with the aim of taking Sudza under control", which indeed happened in August. There was also a prediction that Ukraine would attempt to destroy the bridge over the Sejm River in order to disrupt Russian supply lines in the region, which later happened. The June document complained that Russian units stationed at the front "are only 60-70 percent manned on average and primarily consist of poorly trained reserves."
When the Ukrainian attack occurred on August 6, many Russian soldiers left their positions and within a week, Ukraine took full control of Suja. "They fled without evacuating or destroying their documents," said a member of the special operations team that seized the file.
During Moscow's chaotic retreat, Ukrainian forces captured hundreds of Russian soldiers, many of them conscripts, who are not generally expected to face battle. In August, the parents of an army soldier from another company included in the documents recorded a tearful video appeal, identifying him as their 22-year-old son Vadim Kopilov, saying he had been captured near Suzha and calling on Russian authorities to exchange it.
The documents provide insight into Russian tactics over the past year, in one case discussing the need to create decoy trenches and positions to confuse Ukrainian reconnaissance drones. "Models of tanks, armored vehicles and artillery launchers, as well as mannequins of soldiers, should be made and moved periodically," one order said.
