Ukraine’s soldiers seek revenge against Putin’s forces in Kursk: ‘We laughed digging trenches on enemy soil’

Ukrainian forces have damaged or destroyed three bridges in Russia’s Kursk region – aiming to cut crucial Russian supply lines in the latest chapter in Kyiv’s daring assault across the border, which the country’s president Volodymyr Zelensky says is achieving its military aims.

Ukraine’s troops know Russia will respond but want to take as much revenge against Vladimir Putin’s forces as they can. Soldiers from one of the brigades that spearheaded the offensive into Kursk have told The Independent how they laughed in disbelief and joy as they dug trenches inside Russia.

“It was an incredible feeling to realise that this time we were invading them and we laughed like madmen as we dug trenches on enemy land, Russian soil,” said a soldier with the codename Lyasha.

Lyasha, 28, and some of his comrades from a mechanised infantry unit had been fighting at the front lines of the Ukrainian offensive since its very beginning on 6 August. He said they had gone past Sudzha, a town six kilometres into the Russian side of the border that is an important hub for the main gas pipeline from Russia into Western Europe as well as a railway junction, and moved at least 20km deep into Russian territory.

There, they had dug in while others pressed forward in three or four directions, including towards Kursk region’s eponymous capital city which is close to one of Russia’s nuclear power plants.

At the little village cafe where we met along one of the routes towards the Sumy region’s border with Russia’s Kursk province, Lyasha said they had just driven back into Ukraine and were getting four or five days’ rest before they crossed the border back to the Russian battlefields.

When asked if that indicated the Ukrainian incursion into Russia was expected to carry on for some time – having already lasted two weeks – another of the soldiers with the war name “Afon” said: “I think that is a correct assumption.” The strikes on the bridges would suggest the same.

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As we spoke, a constant stream both ways of tanks, armoured personnel carriers, self-propelled howitzers and other tracked or wheeled traffic trundled or piggybacked on giant vehicle carriers along the road. Fuel tankers, supply trucks, a mix of smaller American Humvees and similar, small armoured, Ukrainian, French and other Western donors’ vehicles flourishing large-calibre machine guns and rocket launchers and endless SUVs painted olive drab passed by.

Intermittently, ambulances heading to hospitals in the Ukrainian region’s capital, Sumy city, hurtled at breakneck speed, the traffic in front making way for someone they knew was most likely a badly wounded comrade.

Lyasha, Afon and their friends were modest when describing the fighting they’d been through in a way that those who have dealt with soldiers recognise they are the real thing: those who brag about their exploits tend to have done the least.

Lyasha said: “At the start, the Russian soldiers we encountered were surprised and shocked and many of them surrendered eagerly. They didn’t want to die.

"There were also units of Chechen soldiers based around Sudzha and they were really scared. They’ve done monstrous things in Ukraine and were afraid we would torture and execute them the way they have done to Ukrainian civilians and military. Some of them were in civilian clothes when we captured them and they abandoned a lot of their weapons and vehicles when they ran.”

On Monday, Ukraine’s ground forces commander, Oleksandr Pavliuk, said on Telegram that troops were “successfully fulfilling tasks” in the Kursk region and capturing Russian prisoners of war to be traded for imprisoned Ukrainian troops.

Afon said: “We may have mocked them a bit but of course, we didn’t torture them or beat them. We need them alive because they will be traded for our people that the Russians hold. But we don’t behave that way. No civilians or soldiers who surrendered have been mistreated by anyone in our unit. It’s a point of honour to show the world we are different from the Russians. We are civilised and they are barbarians.”

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Lyasha said he had asked an old lady in one of the villages Ukrainian soldiers captured – Kyiv says some 80 settlements have been taken – what she thought of the Ukrainian soldiers and she said: “You’re well-behaved boys”. When he asked her what she thought about what Russian soldiers have done in Ukraine, he said she avoided a direct answer and said: “None of us wanted this war.”

Afon, Lyasha and most of their comrades are experienced soldiers who had been fighting since Putin’s invasion began in 2022 and had been redeployed for the Kursk operation from positions in eastern Ukraine where they had been under fierce Russian attack for months, with Putin’s forces making advances there.

Afon said: “So far, the fighting we have experienced [in Kursk] has been less fierce than what we’ve been used to in Ukraine. But we know that’s because most of those we’ve faced are recently conscripted or ill-trained men who have never been in battle before – although they have used many glide bombs and rockets and caused us quite a few casualties

“But we know Putin is furious because he feels humiliated and he’ll be out for revenge. They will be sending thousands of men and pulling up lots of armour, artillery, missiles this way over the next days.

“And then they will try to f*** us with everything they’ve got. We’re expecting that and we’ll be as ready as we can be.

“We don’t know how things will turn out but we all think this is better than being stuck in trenches for months, being hit by massive Russian glide bombs, artillery, rockets and watching our friends die or get wounded around us. At least we’re on the move now. We’ve broken the stalemate and morale is very high.”

The boom of explosions from incoming Russian ordnance provides a constant backdrop sometimes punctuated by the more rapid reports of Ukrainian outgoing anti-aircraft weapons trying to knock down drones or glide bombs.

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The local people say that their villages in the Sumy region have been targets for Russian shelling intermittently since the 2022 invasion but the attacks on their homes, just a few miles from the Russian border and which lie directly along the main route being used by the Ukrainian military, have increased enormously since the Ukrainian cross border raid began.

Oleksandr and his wife Natalia were clearing up the remains of his mother’s home which had been blasted by a glide bomb which hit that main route.

Oleksandr’s mother, his sister and niece were in the home when it was all but demolished by the bomb – one of the smaller ones, with only a quarter or half-ton explosive payload.

The three were only lightly injured and are recovering in a hospital in Sumy city. The huge crater gouged out by the bomb was quickly filled in so as not to interrupt the military traffic using it day and night.

Natalia was sweeping out a mess of shattered glass, blasted rubble, ceiling plaster and children’s toys from a room where one wall was missing and showed the military vehicles speeding along the road outside. A clock, its hands frozen at the time the bomb exploded the previous night, still clung to a remaining wall.

She said: “Nobody will ever live in this house again. It’s too wrecked to repair. But it’s a place my husband grew up in and we want to tidy it up, even though you may think that’s pointless. What the Russians are doing is hideous but everyone tries to get on with life.”

Oleksandr, 45, an accountant for an agricultural equipment firm, said: “We don’t wish war upon anyone but I think it’s good that our troops are now in Russia. Maybe when they get a taste of the pain we’ve been getting for years, it’ll make people in Russia think about the situation differently. So perhaps this invasion might bring peace a little closer.”

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On Saturday, at least four powerful explosions shook Sumy city. The first was just after six in the morning and struck a high-rise block of apartments just to the east of the Psel River which bisects the city. It left scores of windows shattered and a dozen cars burning but only lightly injured one middle-aged man in the building.

Emergency services spokesman Oleh Strilko said: “Of course, the residents were shocked and very stressed but people in our city have learned to cope. They evacuated themselves and searched around to make sure their neighbours were safe.”

Prior to the Kursk operation, he said, there had been some 10 explosions in the city the entire year. Since then, there had been daily strikes leading up to the four heard on Saturday.

Like many of his fellow citizens, Strilko believes the Ukrainian thrust into Russia is worth it despite the anticipated upsurge in attacks by Putin. He said: “The things that should have been and need to be done are being done.”

A construction worker, who lives nearby and was checking on some friends living in the damaged block of flats, agreed with Strilko. Vasyl, 65 – whose wife is Russian – said: “The Ukrainians and Russians here always seemed to get on. I and my wife were shocked when, at the start of the war, Russia attacked.

“I had never had animosity toward Russians and thought of many as my friends. We used to go over there and they would visit here. But I never realised how, over the decades, the lies and propaganda had fixed itself in their minds. Their soldiers have acted like barbarians [and] jackals.

“I’ve got to be honest with you... I hate them now. Our country is weaker than theirs militarily and there are more of them than us and Sumy is close to their border. But if they come here, I will become a partisan and fight them. We all will.”