Russian special forces crept miles through a major gas pipeline near the town of Sudzha in an attempt to surprise Ukrainian forces as part of a major offensive to eject Ukrainian soldiers from the western Russian region of Kursk, pro-Russian war bloggers said.

Thousands of Ukrainian soldiers seized about 1,300 square km of Russia’s Kursk region in August last year in what Kyiv said was an attempt to gain a bargaining chip in future negotiations and to force Russia to shift forces from eastern Ukraine.

Russia has been pressing the attack with some success in recent days, with maps on Friday showing Kyiv’s contingent in Kursk nearly surrounded after rapid Russian advances.

Russian advances in 2024 and US President Donald Trump’s upending of US policy on Ukraine and Russia have caused fears among European leaders that Ukraine will lose the war and that Trump is turning his back on Europe.

The United States paused military aid and the sharing of intelligence with Ukraine this month after a meeting between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on February 28 descended into acrimony in front of the world’s media.

In its daily update on the situation in Kursk, Russia’s Defence Ministry said its forces had retaken the village of Lebedevka, as well as seizing Novenke, a hamlet across the border in Ukraine's neighbouring Sumy region.

Yuri Podolyaka, a Ukrainian-born, pro-Russian military blogger, said Russian special forces had walked miles along the inside of the major gas pipeline and some had spent several days in the pipe before surprising Ukrainian forces from the rear near Sudzha.

Sudzha is the home of major gas transfer and measuring stations on a pipeline that used to carry Russian natural gas into the Ukrainian gas transmission system for onward transportation to Europe.

Battle for Sudzha

Pro-Russian war blogger Two Majors said a major battle was under way for Sudzha and that Russian forces had surprised Ukrainian soldiers by entering the area via a major gas pipeline.

Russian Telegram channels showed pictures of special forces in gas masks and lights, some using colourful Russian curses, along the inside of what looked like a large pipe.

A statement from Ukraine’s general staff said that Russian soldiers had used the gas pipeline in an attempt to gain a foothold, but airborne assault forces promptly detected them and responded with rocket, artillery and drone attacks that were destroying the Russian units.

Owing to battlefield reporting restrictions on both sides, Reuters was unable to verify the reports.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has led to the biggest confrontation between the West and Russia since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Both the Kremlin and White House have said missteps could trigger World War Three.

In the eastern Donetsk region, where Russian forces have made slow but steady progress during gruelling fighting in what was once Ukraine's industrial heartland, Moscow said on Sunday that its forces had taken the village of Konstyantynopil.

Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk last August was the most serious attack on Russian territory since the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941.

“Fighting continued throughout the night in Sudzha,” said Podolyaka, adding that part of the town was under Russian control.

Another war blogger, Yuri Kotenok, said that Ukrainian forces have been moving equipment away from Sudzha, closer to the border.

“At the moment, our units are attacking in the north-eastern part of Sudzha and fighting in the area of ​​Lomonosov Street and the industrial zone of Sudzha,” Kotenok said.

The Soviet-era Urengoy-Pomary-Uzhgorod pipeline used to bring gas from western Siberia via Sudzha to Ukraine but Ukraine terminated all Russian gas transit through its territory from January 1.