The Commandos Who Cracked Kursk

Prelude

On the night of March 7, 2025, Russia launched a massive missile attack on Ukrainian energy infrastructure. The attack ranged across a number of Ukrainian regions. Targets included natural gas storage facilities in western Ukraine, and gas pipeline facilities in Sumy and Poltava.

No information was provided about the damage at Sumy and Poltava. The story was lost amid the noise of the larger attack. Figure 2 shows the locations of Poltava, Sumy, and Sudzha.

The significance of the attack on Poltava would only become apparent later.  It was part of a  puzzle that  demonstrated the Russians’ ability to integrate planning at the operational and tactical levels.

Ukraine’s Kursk Offensive of August 6, 2024

My previous article How Ukraine’s Kursk Offensive Failed dealt in some detail with Ukraine’s Kursk Offensive. I encourage the reader to study that article for background because I will not provide an in-depth review here. Suffice it to say that, after initial success, the AFU offensive stalled. The Russians slowly tightened a vise around the salient, where the Ukrainians fortified the town of Sudzha. Instead of withdrawing his forces, Zelensky flowed more men and materiel into the salient. Rather than pushing the Ukrainians out of Kursk right away, the Russians took their time and ground down all the AFU pushed into the fire sac.

Mission Impossible

As early as January, Russia began planning an operation to take Sudzha and collapse the salient. Ironically, Zelensky himself provided them with the key to the city. On January 1st, the Ukrainians shut off Russian gas to Europe. In a previous article, Ukraine shuts off Russian gas and causes higher prices, I described the Ukrainian gas pipeline system. There are two metered entry points from Russia – Sudzha in Kursk, and Sokhranivka in Luhansk. Ukraine shut Sokhranivka in 2022. It then shut down gas from Sudzha on New Year’s Day, 2025.

The Russian commanders studied the map. They realized the Ukrainians had just handed them a ready-made, nine-mile tunnel from Russian-held territory to Sudzha. Figure 4 shows the main geographical points. The Brotherhood Pipeline runs through Bol’shoe Soldatskoe on the Russian side of the lines and all the way to Sudzha and beyond. Figure 3 shows the same features, without specifically identifying the exit point.

Engineers were called in and asked for a briefing. “It’s nine miles long, four-and-a-half feet in diameter, and it’s still filled with gas. It can’t be done.”

The generals said, “Let’s get to work.”

Gas remaining in the pipeline was pumped out and replaced with oxygen. Engineers were sent down to prepare the way. Despite best efforts, significant pockets of gas remained, so they carried gas detectors to measure gas concentrations in the atmosphere. A number passed out and had to be rescued. They recovered in the hospital and went back in.

Engineers worked around the clock. They were assisted by men of the 60th Assault Brigade (Veterans), made up of former Wagner PMC contractors. These men had conducted a similar operation in a mile-long sewer to take Avdiivka. The engineers cut the pipe and built waystations at fixed locations the length of the route. The waystations would allow troops to rest and store weapons, ammunition, and supplies. It was difficult to force air through a nine-mile pipe using compressors, so they carved ventilation shafts (Figure 6).

The Eight Hundred

The plan called for a strike force of battalion strength. They would transit the pipeline and emerge just north of Sudzha, behind the northern line of contact. They would sow panic and form a blocking force to prevent AFU from withdrawing to the town.

It was understood that security had to be enforced. If the Ukrainians got wind of the operation, they could do any number of things to destroy the pipeline and kill everyone inside. Eight hundred men were recruited on a strictly voluntary basis. They were drawn from five brigades:

First Assault Unit

Mission: Form blocking force facing Kubatkin, hold until relieved

• Akhmat Special Forces
• 30th Guards Motor Rifle Regiment

Second Assault Unit

Mission: Form blocking force on eastern flank, hold until relieved

• 60th Assault Brigade “Veterans”
• 114th Vostok Brigade
• 11th Airborne Brigade

Major General Apti Alaudinov, commander of the Akhmat Special Forces, was to lead the assault force. The operation would be monitored from a communications center on the Russian side of the lines. That center would be under Commander “Zombie,” a former Wagner PMC senior leader (Figure 8).

Both men are charismatic leaders. In the Russian armed forces, generals are expected to lead from the front. That’s why general officer casualties are so high. Alaudinov is known for appearing among his men on the front lines, carrying a rifle. Commander Zombie is the same way. His early career was checkered, but he took off when he joined the GRU Special Forces. The GRU SF is a very flat organization. Everyone starts at the bottom. Many Wagner PMC contractors were drawn from the GRU and kept the structure. Hence, Zombie has no military rank. He is called “Commander” by virtue of his reputation and seniority. He made his bones in the Donbas War of 2014, where he commanded the units that became Wagner PMC.

Down the Pipe

General Alaudinov told the attack force to plan for at least five days. They would have to make their way down the pipe, then wait for the signal to attack. The first assault unit had to set up blocking positions between Sudzha and the AFU to the north. They had to hold until relieved. The second assault unit had to do the same on the eastern flank.

The men moved into the pipe. The first assault unit of three hundred men led the way, followed by the second assault unit of five hundred. The tunnel was claustrophobic. Most of the men, however, had experience. The men of the Veterans had participated in the sewer infiltration that felled Avdiivka. Many of the men from the other units, especially those from Donbas, were coal miners in their civilian lives.

They moved in small groups of four or five, separated by fifteen or twenty feet between groups. That made it easier to breathe. When the point elements reached the end of the tunnel, they sat down to wait. The pipe was so narrow, that only one man could pass at a time. They waited for their units to assemble. They waited for the signal to attack.

Some of the men, the point elements, waited for three days in the dark. The operation was complex, and there were a number of moving parts. The pipeline raid was only one piece of the puzzle.

The Attack

On March 7, Russian missiles struck gas transportation facilities in Sumy and Poltava. The Ukrainians were so numb after years of missile attacks, that they attached no special significance to the strikes.

These strikes showed the operational planning conducted by the Russian commanders. There was a risk that the pipeline operation would be detected by the AFU the minute the raiders emerged from the pipe. They could call artillery down on the raiders. But they could also open the valves in Sumy and Poltava and flood the pipeline with gas (see Figure 2). The gas would move through the pipeline to Sudzha and thence to Bol’shoe Soldatskoe. That one action would kill the raiders who had not yet left the pipe. The gas transport facilities to make this impossible.

After the fact, the Ukrainians said they had known about the raid all along and had wiped out the raiders. The timing of the strikes on Poltava gives the lie to this claim. Had the Ukrainians indeed known about the raid well in advance, they would have flooded the pipeline with gas before March 7 and foiled the attack. We know that the point elements were waiting at the end of the tunnel by March 5, and the second assault unit was still moving into position.

On March 8, the signal to attack was given, and the raiders emerged from the pipeline. Figure 10 shows the area of operations north and east of Sudzha. The first assault unit of 300 men took positions to the north, facing roughly in the direction of the village of Kubatkin. They mined bridges and set up defensive positions.

The second assault unit of 500 men had more ground to cover. They moved immediately to the railway. If you zoom in on Google Earth, you see that the railway is flanked on both sides by tree lines. They entered the woods and moved south to the industrial district of Sudzha. It’s the built-up area immediately south and east of the pipeline exit point. The pipeline assault units’ blocking positions are denoted by the heavy red line.

The assault units were already behind enemy lines. You can see a bridge across the railroad line immediately north of the industrial district. The Russians were supposed to rig it for demolition. As it happens, the Ukrainians had already rigged it for demolition in case the Russians broke through.

All hell broke loose. The Russians were detected, and the Ukrainians blew up that bridge themselves. That was a mistake of monumental proportions. They didn’t realize it, but they had partially cut off all their men north and east up the road to Martynovka and  Cherkasskoe Porechnoe. The Ukrainians in Sudzha also called down artillery on what they could see of the Russian positions, but the Russians had already dug in.

The stage was set for catastrophe. The Ukrainians north and east of Sudzha – those in Martynovka, Mikhaelovka, and further north in Cherkasskoe Porechnoe could hear the artillery landing to their rear. They called in to find out what was going on and were told artillery was shelling Russians behind them.

All the AFU units north and east of Sudzha panicked because they knew if they were cut off, they would be destroyed. They piled into whatever vehicles they had and raced down the road toward Sudzha. Those who had no vehicles ran away on foot. Their route is indicated by the thick blue arrows in Figure 10.

The fleeing Ukrainians ran into heavy fire from the second assault team. Some turned north at the fork in the road and found that the bridge crossing the railroad tracks had already been blown by their own people (see Figure 11).

In addition to destroying AFU vehicles, Russian drone operators were also taking out communications towers and other bridges around the city. The Ukrainians turned around, tried to backtrack to the fork in the road, and created a traffic jam by piling onto vehicles coming up behind them. The remaining vehicles, those that had not yet reached the fork, turned left and ran toward the industrial district.

The second assault unit had more men than the first, but not enough to seize the industrial district at that early stage. The fleeing Ukrainians got around their right flank and tried to cross the river into Sudzha. They found the bridge across the river to the south had also been blown up (Figure 12). The Russian assault units were using drones to protect their rear and flanks.

In the resulting chaos, it’s fair to say that all the AFU units north and east of Sudzha were cut off. The Russian attack was coordinated. All the while this was going on, Russian ground forces were attacking from northeast of Cherkasskoe Porechnoe and Berdin. With the roads covered by drones, AFU troops fled into the muddy fields. It was a bad day.

Figure 14 below shows the blocking position in red between the pipeline exit point and the industrial district. The Russian ground forces attacked from the northeast and northwest. Compare Bol’shoe Soldatskoe to the blocking position and you can see how far behind enemy lines the pipeline force travelled underground.

An amazing vertical envelopment that may never be repeated.

Now, the Ukrainian units occupied the blue-shaded spaces. There were many of them between the blocking force and the Russian ground attack. It’s fair to say those AFU troops were routed.
On March 10, the 155th Marine Brigade broke through to the blocking force from the northwest (their left flank), and the 30th Guards Motor Rifle Regiment and an Akhmat battalion broke through from the northeast (their right flank).

The flanks were closed, and the pipeline raiders were relieved.

Sudzha fell shortly thereafter, and the Kursk salient collapsed.

Conclusion

While the Russians had the force structure to take the Kursk salient any time they wanted, it would have been a costly effort. The town was held by the best Ukrainian troops and they fought hard, especially when dug in. The pipeline raid allowed Russia to collapse the salient with a minimum of casualties.

This is the story behind the story.

About the Author

You may reach Cameron at: cameron.curtis545@gmail.com

Cameron Curtis has spent thirty years in the financial markets as a trader and risk manager. He was on the trade floor when Saddam’s tanks rolled into Kuwait, when the air wars opened over Baghdad and Belgrade, and when the financial crisis swallowed the world. He’s studied military affairs and warfare all his adult life. His popular Breed series of military adventure thrillers are admired for combining deep expertise with propulsive action. The premises are realistic, the stories adrenaline-fueled and emotionally engaging.

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