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Author Xu Jijun, New Media Hantang Think Tank!
From the time the Ukrainian army launched an attack on Kursk in August 2024, when the Russian army repelled or eliminated the Ukrainian army has been the center of attention of various countries. As the face of Russia’s great power is at stake, in a way, the battle of a few hundred square kilometers in Kursk is yet more symbolic than the battle of a 1,300-kilometer front in eastern Ukraine.
As the situation has changed, the Battle of Kursk is now at an end.
On February 19, 2025, after the Russian elite 801st Naval Close Protection Brigade attacked the Sumy region of Ukraine, the Ukrainian forces fighting in Kursk were cut off from their retreat.
Even so, Ukrainian President Zelensky still wants the Ukrainian army to hold Kursk to the death, as it is a political battle that he himself has been holding on to for half a year, relying on Kursk to influence US and European decision-making to continue to support the Ukrainian war effort.
At this point in the war, the Ukrainian army in Kursk has already gone to heaven. A lone army deep in the dead zone, so let’s die.
The Ukrainian army has lost all of its elite!
Since the outbreak of the battle of Kursk on August 6, 2024, the Russian army has been fighting back in the direction of Kursk with great success.
On March 7, 2025, the Russian Ministry of Defense published a report on the battle, which showed that over the past six months the Russian army had eliminated 65,400 Ukrainian troops in the Kursk direction. Thousands of tanks, armored vehicles, and other large military equipment were destroyed.
On March 7, Deep State, an authoritative Ukrainian military blog resource, released an open-source map showing that about three-quarters of the UAF in Russia is now almost completely surrounded. The remnants of the UAF are pinned down by Russian forces near the Russian-Ukrainian border, clustered together with a complete loss of maneuvering space.
Russian forces have laid siege to the town of Suja, the centerpiece of the UAE-occupied zone, and have blown up bridges around Suja, cutting off UAE retreat routes.
With the Russians squeezing in on three sides of the siege, the H07 highway and the R200 highway, the only supply routes for the UAF, are covered by Russian firepower.
The Kursk-Ukrainian liaison line with the Sumy region, which passes through a land corridor about 1 kilometer long and less than 500 meters at its narrowest point, is now completely covered by Russian artillery fire.
With no way to attack and no way to retreat, the 8,000-strong Ukrainian army is facing a desperate situation and has been completely wrapped up in a dumpling.
Even if the commanding general of the Ukrainian army orders them to retreat, the Ukrainian army can only throw away their heavy equipment and flee in all directions, how many of them can escape and how many of them will die on the way to escape, no one cares about it.
Second, Zelensky completely miscalculated!
Ukraine launched the Battle of Kursk, committing a succession of elite troops to die and not to retreat, supposedly with the strategic aim of relieving pressure on the Udon front and providing potential bargaining chips for territorial exchanges in future peace negotiations.
On February 11, Zelensky publicly declared that the Ukrainian side was planning to use parts of Russia’s Kursk Oblast already under its control in exchange for parts of its own territory controlled by the Russian side.
This was the first time Zelensky had expressed his views on territorial exchange in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, and it could even be considered a major concession by him on the issue.
After all, since the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, Zelensky has been demanding that the Russians withdraw from the 1991 border, or at least return to the 2014 border.
However, Zelensky’s performance was directly slapped in the face by the Russian side.
In a social media post, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zakharova said Neo-Nazis operating in Kursk Oblast don’t have to rely on exchanges to get a piece of land measuring about two square meters, about one and a half meters deep.
The implication is that these Nazis will be given a grave for every one of them.
Because of Russia’s policy of killing NATO mercenaries who invade Kursk, the Ukrainian army in Kursk would rather die in battle or freeze to death in the trenches than surrender.
Putin has repeatedly stated that Russia will regain full control of Kursk by force and has refused to include Kursk in broader negotiations in the future.
For Russia, Kursk is not only strategically important, but also a symbol of national sovereignty and territorial integrity that will never be easily conceded.
Now that Zelensky has lost his Kursk bargaining chip, he will have nothing at the negotiating table in the future.
Three The U.S. cut off the supply, the U.S. Army routed!
Following a public spat in the White House, on March 3, President Donald Trump ordered the suspension of all military aid to Ukraine.On March 5, CIA Director John Ratcliffe said the U.S. had suspended intelligence sharing with Ukraine.
How important is U.S. intelligence to Ukraine? One could say it is a matter of life and death.
On February 18, 2022, six days before the outbreak of full-scale war between Russia and Ukraine, then U.S. President Joe Biden said he was convinced that Moscow had decided to invade Ukraine. Biden said we have a strong intelligence capability.
At the time, the Zelensky government insisted that a full-scale invasion was unlikely.
The truth is, Biden was right and Zelensky was wrong.
Since the outbreak of the war, the United States has used its powerful spying capabilities, its satellite surveillance capabilities, and its Starlink system communications capabilities to share intelligence with Ukraine and help it in its fight.
Indeed, the consequences on the battlefield of the temporary suspension of U.S. assistance to Ukraine in the form of military equipment usually have a lagging effect. Ukraine once claimed that large-caliber artillery shells would last half a month after the U.S. cut off supplies, that there were still eight Patriot air defense missiles available, and so on and so forth. However, the suspension of intelligence sharing by the U.S. military will directly lead to the front-line Ukrainian troops becoming blind, completely unable to grasp the direction of movement of the opposite Russian army.
After the U.S. stopped intelligence support, France announced that it would continue to provide intelligence support to Ukraine, and Britain made it clear that it would not be restricted by the U.S. and would continue to provide intelligence to Ukraine .
However, the intelligence capability of European countries is completely different from that of the United States.
Before the outbreak of the war, the United States had already begun to intentionally improve Ukraine’s intelligence operational capabilities.
Ukraine has several CIA-supported intelligence bases and 12 covert sites deployed along the Russian-Ukrainian border.
In 2016, the U.S. CIA began training Ukrainian Unit 2245. 2245 trainee officers included Kirillo Budanov, now the head of Ukrainian Military Intelligence.
Unit 2245 captured Russian drones and communications equipment after the war broke out. The CIA would reverse the decryption of this equipment and thus gain access to the Russian military’s encrypted communications.
During the war, the U.S. provided Ukraine with a combination of satellite imagery and signals primarily to enable the Ukrainian military to prepare for Russian attacks, but also to help the Ukrainian military track Russian movements and base locations, enabling the Ukrainian military to utilize long-range missiles to strike Russian targets with precision.
This intelligence support was decisive in the killings caused by Russia.
IV After Kursk comes Sumy!
According to Pasi Paroinen, a military analyst with the Finnish Blackbird Group, the situation of the Ukrainian army in Kursk is very bad. There is not much time left before the Ukrainian army is surrounded or forced to retreat. Retreating means taking risks, and the army will be under constant threat from Russian drones and artillery. If the UAF does not quickly restore the situation, the Kursk Commando may eventually begin to be encircled.
Another military analyst, Yan Matveyev, said on the Telegraph channel that Ukraine faces a difficult choice. The only argument in favor of holding the bridgehead is political. The use of the remnants of the bridgehead for negotiations is also intended to boost morale .
Now, the Russian army is about to completely annihilate the Kursk Ukrainian army.
After winning a decisive victory, the Russians will most likely hand over the task of cleaning up the remnants of the Ukrainian army to the DPR army, and at least 50,000 Russian troops will attack the Sumy oblast. The capital of Sumy oblast is 330 kilometers from Kiev.
By entering Sumy, Russian troops threaten Kiev to the west and Ukraine’s second largest city, Kharkiv, to the east. This offensive will give the Russian army an excellent strategic advantage.
Zelensky’s strategic adventure will eventually swallow the bitter fruit of his lack of strength.
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