Moscow's troops were waging fierce battles on Thursday in Russia's western Kursk region against Ukrainian forces, including hundreds holed up in a monastery, in an effort to rout them from Kyiv's last major foothold in sovereign Russian territory, war bloggers said.
Ukrainian troops stormed across the border into Russia last August and seized almost 1,400 square km of Kursk in an attack which took Moscow by surprise. Kyiv said it aimed to hold onto a slice of the region to use as a bargaining chip in future negotiations to end the war.
Russia responded by sending in heavy reinforcements, including North Korean soldiers, and within weeks the area under Ukraine's control had shrunk dramatically.
The latest battlefield maps from Deep State, a Ukrainian open-source data project, show that Kyiv holds just a narrow sliver of Kursk.
Russia's Defense Ministry and pro-Russian war bloggers reported heavy battles underway in Gornal, Guevo and Oleshnya, neighboring villages that hug the border with Ukraine's Sumy region.
Mash, a Telegram channel close to Russia's security services, said Ukraine was trying to organize its defense on the highlands around Gornal, where it said more than 300 soldiers were hunkering down in the Gornalsky St. Nicholas Belogorsky monastery.
There was no immediate comment from Ukraine and Reuters could not independently verify the reports. The monastery's Telegram channel made no mention of military operations in the area.
Mash said there was an underground passage beneath the monastery "through which the Ukrainian Armed Forces are evacuating and delivering ammunition for long-term defense."
The SHOT Telegram channel also said Ukraine was pulling reserves into Gornal via the monastery's passageway.
The war blogger Dnevnik Desantnika (Paratrooper's Diary) said that should Ukraine lose its holds in Guevo and Gornal, Russian troops would face little resistance in storming across the border into Ukraine's Sumy region.
"The territory and landscape in this area are such that if the enemy loses this part, then there is lowland, and the enemy will not be able to hold the defence of the Sumy region," Dnevnik Desantnika wrote.
Kyiv's top general warned last week that Russian forces were stepping up attacks along Ukraine's northeastern border in a bid to break into Sumy, adding that his troops were conducting defensive and assault operations to retain a buffer zone inside Kursk.
Roman Alekhin, whose Telegram channel has over 180,000 subscribers, said Ukraine will try to hold onto the high ground around Gornal "with all their might, regardless of losses."
© Thomson Reuters 2025.
19 Comments
JJE
In fact, Russian forces now hold much more of Sumy territory than Ukraine holds in Kursk, owing to increasing expansion of Russia’s expanded position in the border zones. Consulting a relevant map will reveal that.
Now to the article - important to look this up on said map and understand the terrain. This is a sideshow and in no way, shape or form represents a valid card. Not even astride any MSRs. This is a routine mopping up operation at most.
Here is the monastery 'complex' (51.066151, 35.232583). There is nothing strategic about the location. Defiling a religious place is quite shameful. However, it is as good a place to be for the inevitable Last Rites for the regime forces in this small zone.
TaiwanIsNotChina
Trump is fiddling while Europe burns.
TaiwanIsNotChina
For those concerned about the monastery, perhaps don't try to wipe Ukraine off of the map such that have to resort to total war to survive.
Underworld
JJE
Check the maps and realize how little territory Russia has gained in Sumy considering how long they have been there.
But bombing civilians is OK?
It's just a building.
Primusinter
The author of the article did not use the full Mash post. "One of the monks, Father Meletius, said: some of the buildings have already been destroyed, all valuables have either been taken out by the militants or destroyed. The priest himself lives in a neighboring village and is engaged in the evacuation of civilians." The Ukrainian military are vandals and marauders. It doesn't matter, does it, Taiwan? The Ukrainian Nazis who occupied the Kursk region sold subscriptions robbing Sudzha.
The "customers" came in their cars from Ukraine, chose a house and robbed everything they could. It's unbelievable! But there are too many witnesses.
Underworld
Primusinter
Yeah, right!
NZ
Russian are liberating Kursk.
As long as I know/and also google saying so-Kursk is part of RF.Still now.
So correct headline may be Russian army is liberating Kursk from UA agressors/but because of your narratives here you wont change it/
Somebody told me yesterday that Ukraine prevails-but but quick look at news it does not seems so to me at all.
Underworld
NZ
I disagree.
NZ
Underworld
You dont need to be a historian to know simple fact that Kursk is part of RF.
So sure you may disagree.
But before that you may check world map first.
Ukraine forces have attacked Kursk area/part of RF so they are agressors.
What is disagree with this?
Russian forces are liberating own town Kursk from ukraine agressors.
Same question-what is to disagree about?
Are you one who is making deadlines here?
Underworld
NZ
let me disagree with you again.
RichardPearce
So, Zelensky's Marauders, which a week or two were DEFINITELY AND DEFINITIVELY NOT CUT OFF!!!!! are using a monastery as a shield to hide behind because they have no line of retreat.
Funny how that happened.
Underworld
RichardPearce
Well, the monastery has an underground passageway, so it's not cut off from retreat.
JJE
This monastery gig is going to turn into another mass casualty event for the visitors. There is a river hemming it in, running very close along the border. Hard to imagine there is an underground passageway crossing that body of water. If anything, another encirclement is being prepped to mop up stragglers who didn't make it away.
Safe prediction is this will be the last time we hear of this place here.
TaiwanIsNotChina
Your country did the exact same thing to Ukraine x10.
NZ
how about to admit that heroi from Ukraine have completely lost?
at least in Kursk region.
RichardPearce
So, why, you ask, are they saying that they are getting supplies and relief in through a tunnel when Kiev regime controlled territory is just across the nearby border?
Because between where they are, and the Kiev regime controlled territory, is territory under the control of the intervention force protecting the population from the Kiev regime.
So, at what point will some people admit they are cut off?
Well, about the time they start calling the Marauders 'brave' for not 'retreating' but instead refusing to surrender.
Will they again claim they all died defiantly, and then celebrate as they salute Zelensky after the prisoner exchange that shows most of them did indeed surrender, but Zelensky honors their bravery anyway?
Who knows.
wallace
Putin should return the stolen Ukraine children as a gesture of wanting peace talks.
chatanista
Seems the Kursk incursion is pretty much over. What was achieved and at what cost.
wallace
Putin is Still Stealing Ukrainian Children
Mar 24, 2025 - ISW Press
https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/putin-still-stealing-ukrainian-children
Russia's Kidnapping and Re-education of Ukraine's Children
https://medicine.yale.edu/news-article/fact-sheet-russias-kidnapping-and-re-education-of-ukraines-children/