Ukraine’s retreat from Kursk Oblast appears more likely as the latest news shows Russia taking ground amid intense attacks to drive Ukraine out, experts and soldiers say. Retaking Ukrainian-held territory in Kursk Oblast could leave Kyiv without its hard-fought bargaining chip before potential negotiations with Russia.
In recent days, Russian forces have destroyed Ukrainian logistics in Kursk Oblast, claimed to capture several settlements, and reportedly entered the key town of Sudzha.
Soldiers on the ground told the Kyiv Independent on March 7 that with “zero logistics” left, some would like to withdraw. Ukraine’s military leadership said on March 10 that there was no threat of encirclement for Ukrainian troops and ordered reinforcements.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said during a briefing on March 12 that Ukrainian forces continue to fulfill tasks in Kursk Oblast, while the command is “preserving the maximum of lives of our soldiers.”
The news comes as U.S. officials plan to meet with Russian representatives in the coming days to consider a temporary 30-day ceasefire discussed during U.S. talks with Ukraine in Saudi Arabia on March 11.
“Before any talks between Russia and the U.S., the Russians are trying to resolve (the Kursk problem) as quickly as possible, concentrating all the forces they can,” Mykhailo Samus, military expert and director of the New Geopolitics Research Network, told the Kyiv Independent.
Using drones to cut logistics
Russians have brought their most effective drone units to Kursk Oblast, who are now fire-controlling Ukrainian logistic routes, thanks to Russia’s advances on the right and left flanks of the salient, experts say.
In Kursk Oblast, logistics are good — with good roads and enough settlements where Ukrainian troops can reside and build shelters, Ruslan Mykula, a military analyst and co-founder of the DeepState OSINT project told the Kyiv Independent.
But the main problem for Ukrainian forces is a section of about 10 kilometers of the main highway in Ukraine’s Sumy Oblast between the village of Yunakivka and the Sudzha border crossing.
“Formally, all the logistics are tied to the Sumy-Sudzha asphalt highway, which is very easy to control, because the distances (to the enemy) there are not very long, about 5-7, maximum 15 kilometers, which is not a problem for modern drones,” a retired military officer and defense expert Viktor Kevliuk told the Kyiv Independent.
“Logistics routes are also not so numerous because the area is either swampy or bridges are destroyed,” he added.
“This operation turned into something similar to Krynky,” Mykula said, referring to the village in the Russian-occupied east bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson Oblast held by Ukrainian forces for about nine months in 2023-2024. Ukrainians lost hundreds of soldiers during the dangerous river crossings — the only conventional logistics route to Krynky.
“The road between Yunakivka and the (Kursk Oblast) border is like the Dnipro River (near Krynky), where every infantryman or vehicle can be hit by first-person-view (FPV) drones day and night,” Mykula explained.
While regular FPV drones are counteracted by electronic warfare equipment used by both Ukrainian and Russian forces, it is powerless against fiber-optic-controlled drones that use an exceptionally long wire unraveled during the flight. Some can fly up to 20 kilometers.
“Not all, but most of the fiber-optic crews in the Russian army are now in the Kursk Oblast. There is a huge concentration of drones there,” Mykula said.
According to Mykula, Ukrainian forces in Kursk Oblast never found a way to counteract this type of drone.
Recent Russian push in Kursk Oblast
Having cut logistics, Russian forces have pushed on the ground in the past several days.
According to Kevliuk, Russian forces are trying to advance both with small infantry groups overnight or during low visibility to avoid drones and on high-speed vehicles such as motorcycles, civilian cars, quad bikes, and golf carts during the day, driving over minefields to quickly storm Ukrainian positions.
On March 8, reports emerged that some Russian sabotage and assault groups had used an underground gas pipe to try to gain a foothold on the outskirts of Sudzha, emulating a similar operation where Russians used the sewers in Avdiivka.
Ukraine’s General staff published a video on March 9, claiming the destruction of those units. But according to open-source monitoring groups, on March 12, the fighting is ongoing in Sudzha. The Ukrainian military has not commented on Russian forces entering the town as of this publication.
Other attacks are targeting alternative Ukrainian logistic routes that are known to Russians, according to Mykula.
“The (North) Korean soldiers’ offensive near Guevo (on Ukraine’s right flank) had a clear task to enter the logistics route of the defense forces through the forest, which they did,” Mykula said.
It could also be a move to encircle Ukrainian troops in Kursk Oblast. As part of these efforts, Russia has deployed two battalions of North Korean special forces, far better-prepared than previous North Korean soldiers sent to the area to fight, Kevliuk said.
“But the encirclement is not working so far, and it will not work in the future because the enemy simply does not have enough troops to do it,” he added.
Peace talks led by the Trump Administration
Ukraine’s continued incursion in Kursk Oblast has had two main goals, experts say.
First was gaining Ukraine leverage in possible peace talks, where Ukrainian-controlled areas of Russia could be exchanged for some Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories, according to Ukraine’s leadership.
The second goal was to divert Russian forces from other parts of the front line, prevent further attacks on Ukraine’s Sumy Oblast, and take the fight to Russian soil.
When the Kursk incursion began in August 2024, Russia’s leadership decided to keep the momentum in Ukraine’s east instead of diverting them to Kursk Oblast, according to experts.
While Russia made small yet steady territorial gains in the east, it failed to achieve all of its major goals for 2024, Samus said.
“Pokrovsk is not occupied, and Chasiv Yar, Toretsk, and Kupiansk are not occupied. (The Russians) did not enter Dnipropetrovsk Oblast,” he said.
“Now, there are 60,000 of not the worst Russian soldiers and North Korean soldiers (in Kursk Oblast), trying to resolve this issue before the start of negotiations between Russia and the United States,” he added.
“If (the Kursk region) cannot be traded at the strategic level, then (Ukraine’s military command) must decide from an operational and tactical point of view whether it is more efficient to withdraw and use these forces in other areas.”
However, the original idea that Ukraine’s foothold in Kursk Oblast could affect negotiations held more weight before the U.S. President Donald Trump got involved, Samus says.
“This could be said before Trump, when the politics were formed traditionally, in some adequate, comprehensible ways.”
If Trump and his administration continue to act in a way that contributes to Russia's interests — halting military aid, denying Ukraine’s security guarantees before peace talks, and lifting sanctions on Russia — they might also decline to consider Kursk Oblast as a bargaining chip, Samus said.
The U.S. restored its military assistance to Ukraine on March 11 after the talks in Saudi Arabia, and Ukraine said it would agree to the temporary 30-day ceasefire if Russia did the same.
It was not immediately clear what the fate of Ukraine-controlled Kursk Oblast would be during any possible ceasefire.
“If (the Kursk region) cannot be traded at the strategic level, then (Ukraine’s military command) must decide from an operational and tactical point of view whether it is more efficient to withdraw and use these forces in other areas,” Samus said.
How long will Ukrainians hold out?
Some experts say that Ukraine can stabilize the logistics and keep its foothold in Kursk Oblast if it sends more resources.
But others, as well as soldiers on the ground, suggest that the Ukrainian retreat has already begun.
Ukrainian troops are using “very well-built” Russian fortifications, well-concealed and fitted for local topography, which would allow them to stay there for a long time, according to Kevliuk.
“War theory tells us that troops should keep a reserve (of supplies) for autonomous operations for 10 days,” Kevliuk added. “If this norm was met (by Ukrainian troops in Kursk), we can talk about 10-14 days (of fighting without logistics).”
“There's very little room or reason to try to maneuver in Kursk anymore,” said Emil Kastehelmi, a Finnish military analyst from the Black Bird Group open-source intelligence collective.
One Ukrainian soldier who asked for anonymity to discuss sensitive matters told the Kyiv Independent that his unit had recently withdrawn from Kursk Oblast, losing almost all of their vehicles.
“It was a horror what was happening on that road,” he said.
“We don't know what will happen next.”
Asami Terajima
