Russian forces recapture villages in Ukrainian-held pocket inside Russia

Russia has taken control of several villages in the Kursk region and claimed on Sunday that its forces were close to surrounding thousands of Ukrainian troops fighting on Russian territory.

For seven months Ukraine has controlled a pocket inside western Russia. Last week Russian and North Korean troops launched a major offensive, shortly after Donald Trump pulled the plug on military support, intelligence and satellite feeds with Kyiv.

The Russians are now closing in on the Ukrainian-held Russian town of Sudzha. They have recaptured villages to the north – Staraya, Novaya Sorochina and Malaya Loknya – as well as other small settlements to the immediate east.

There were unconfirmed reports some Ukrainian soldiers had been captured, amid heavy fighting. The crucial supply road between Sudzha and Ukraine’s Sumy region is under constant Russian fire.

On Sunday Ukraine’s general staff said it had repelled an extraordinary attack by Russian sabotage and assault groups via a gas pipeline. About 100 Russian soldiers spent four days crawling through the 15km-long pipe that leads to Sudzha’s outskirts.

Ukrainian airborne assault forces wiped out some of the Russians using artillery strikes, soon after they emerged, video footage suggests. “Russian special forces are being detected, blocked and destroyed. Enemy losses in the Sudzha area are very heavy,” Ukraine’s military said.

It admitted the situation was difficult but under control, with Russia employing North Korean combat units. They include replacement soldiers sent by Pyongyang after the original 11,000-strong North Korean contingent that arrived last November suffered heavy losses.

On Sunday, Russia’s ex-president Dmitry Medevdev claimed Kyiv’s forces were nearly surrounded and would soon be driven out. “The lid of the smoking cauldron is almost closed. The offensive continues,” he posted on Telegram.

The US appears determined to force further concessions on Ukraine, ahead of talks this week between US and Ukrainian representatives in Saudi Arabia. According to NBC news, Trump wants Zelenskyy to yield territory to Russia and to move towards elections.

The US president is unwilling to resume the supply of weapons and intelligence to Kyiv, even if Zelenskyy signs a favourable minerals deal with the US, it reported. Last month Trump called Ukraine’s president a “dictator” with a “4%” approval rating, echoing Kremlin disinformation.

In fact, elections are not allowed under martial law. In the wake of Trump’s attacks, Zelenskyy’s popularity has risen to above 60%. Most Ukrainians do not support a poll at a time when millions have gone abroad, and when cities and towns are under massive Russian aerial bombardment.

Over the weekend Trump’s pro-Russian ally Elon Musk offered a fresh warning to Kyiv. Posting on X, he wrote: “My Starlink system is the backbone of the Ukrainian army. Their front line would collapse if I turned it off.”

His threat prompted a rebuke from Poland’s foreign minister, Radislaw Sikorski, who pointed out that his government has a commercial contract with Starlink and pays $50m for Ukraine to access Musk’s satellite internet service.

“The ethics of threatening the victim of aggression apart, if SpaceX proves to be an unreliable provider we will be forced to look for other suppliers,” Sikorski wrote back on X. Ukrainian engineers are urgently exploring alternatives.

According to the FT, negotiations are taking place with four European satellite operators. Replacing Starlink terminals across a 1,000km frontline would take time, the paper noted.

Zelenskyy will hold talks on Monday with Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh. On Tuesday a delegation led by Andriy Yermak, Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, will meet with the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and other senior White House officials. Zelenskyy will not take part in the negotiations.

The Ukrainian side is likely to propose a peace plan sketched out by Zelenskyy last week featuring a halt to drone and missiles strikes, as well as a suspension of military activity in the Black Sea. So far, however, Vladimir Putin has showed no interest in a ceasefire.

More than 20 people have been killed in the last two days by Russian bombs. Several ballistic missiles smashed on Friday into a five-storey residential block in the eastern Donetsk region, killing 11 civilians and injuring dozens, including three children.

Overnight, Ukraine carried out its own long-range drone attacks deep inside Russia. According to Telegram channels, oil refineries in Ryazan and Lipetsk were hit, together with an oil depot in Cheboksary in Russia’s Chuvashia Republic.

The depot is located more than 900 km from the Ukrainian border and was targeted for the first time.