MOSCOW—Russian forces on Sunday recaptured three more settlements in Russia’s western Kursk region, the Defense Ministry said, part of an operation to evict Ukrainian troops holding chunks of territory seven months after a cross-border incursion.
The ministry statement, posted on the Telegram messaging app, followed reports by Russian bloggers that Russian special forces had crept for miles through a gas pipeline near the town of Sudzha in an attempt to surprise Ukrainian forces.
The three settlements now under Russian control according to the ministry—Malaya Lokhnya, Cherkasskoye Porechnoye, and Kositsa—all lie north of Sudzha.
“The Russian Federation’s armed forces are continuing to rout groups of the Ukrainian army on the territory of Kursk region,” the statement said.
The earlier report by Russian bloggers on the pipeline operation appeared to be a ruse aimed at cutting off thousands of Ukrainian soldiers in the region ahead of Ukrainian talks with the United States on a possible peace deal to end the war.
Ukrainian troops seized about 500 square miles of Russia’s Kursk region in August 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 its drive to regain control of the region with some success in recent days. Open source maps on Friday showed Kyiv’s contingent in Kursk nearly surrounded after rapid Russian advances.
“The lid of the smoking cauldron is almost closed,” former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Telegram. “The offensive continues.”
Yuri Podolyaka, a Ukrainian-born, pro-Russian military blogger, said Russian special forces crept nearly 10 miles along the inside of the 1.5 meter wide gas pipeline and spent several days in the pipe before surprising Ukrainian forces from the rear near 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 gas pipeline.
