Valentyna Guk stands on a balcony of a heavily damaged building in the downtown of Kharkiv on March 7, 2025, amid the Russia invasion of Ukraine. Valentyna Guk is a 21-year-old Ukrainian artist from Kharkiv who creates mosaics from broken glass. After the shelling, Valentyna collects interestingly shaped pieces of glass and then assembles them into separate mosaic forms, which she later hangs on the facades of buildings. In total, there are six of her mosaic works on the streets of Kharkiv and one in Izyum. (Photo by Ivan SAMOILOV / AFP)
KYIV, Ukraine — Russia has loosened Ukraine’s grip on the Kursk region in recent days, cutting through territory held by Kyiv since its shock incursion last August, military bloggers reported Friday.
Kyiv has ceded ground across the front line for over a year, but has clung on to parts of the Kursk region in the hope it can be swapped with Moscow in future peace negotiations.
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According to DeepState, an online battlefield tracker linked to the Ukrainian army, Moscow broke through Ukrainian defenses south of the Kyiv-held town of Sudzha on March 6.
The map showed Ukraine had lost at least partial control of a road heading towards Sudzha, and had in recent days pulled its forces back from land west of the village of Sverdlikovo.
The Ukrainska Pravda news outlet said Friday that Russia was trying to cut off supply routes and that Kyiv was attempting to “stabilize the situation”, citing a source within an army unit.
Defense analyst Yan Matveyev said Thursday that Russian forces were squeezing the Ukrainian army from the west and east, leaving only a narrow corridor for Kyiv’s troops to pull out if needed.
“The corridor has narrowed to 12-13 kilometers (seven to eight miles). And in the remaining areas, the foothold is too narrow for troops to find safe areas,” he wrote on Telegram.
“The Ukrainian command must make a decision. Withdraw from the Kursk region, having completed the operation and preserved its forces, or hold on, and risk losing everything,” he said on Friday.
Sergiy Sternenko, a prominent Ukrainian activist, wrote Thursday: “The logistics situation in the Kursk region is rapidly deteriorating and is already critical.”
“Logistics routes to Sudzha are under full enemy fire control,” he said in a post on X, citing information from army units in the area.
Russian military correspondent Alexander Kots said Friday: “Kyiv can no longer withdraw its forces painlessly. It’s too late. And it cannot supply them either.”