How deep into Russian territory has Ukraine’s surprise August incursion reached?

On August 6, 2024, the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) entered Russian territory near the city of Sudzha in the Kursk region. The scale of the Ukrainian operation remains unclear, but Meduza reviews what is known about how far the Ukrainian military has advanced.

Several battalions of the AFU’s 22nd Mechanized Brigade, reinforced with special forces and air defense systems (and possibly battalions from other regular brigades), crossed the Russian border into the Kursk region on the night of August 6. By evening the next day, these troops had deeply penetrated Russian defenses, facing very weak forces (border guards and infantry soldiers from one of Russia’s “border cover regiments” established only last year, partially comprising non-mobilized conscripts). In other words, Russia’s local territorial defenses in Kursk were almost entirely without armored vehicles.

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Likely caught off guard by the Ukrainian incursion, the Russian military’s only available immediate response was to launch airstrikes using jets and helicopters and Iskander tactical ballistic missiles at the advancing Ukrainian troops. These attacks hit several AFU armored vehicles, but this didn’t stop the offensive. At least one Russian helicopter was shot down.

According to videos published online, the AFU had achieved the following successes by the evening of August 7, local time:

• After a day of fighting, Ukrainian soldiers captured the “Sudzha” checkpoint at the border dividing Ukraine’s Sumy region and Russia’s Kursk region. The AFU took several dozen Russian border guards prisoner.
• A few hundred yards from the border checkpoint, the AFU also captured the “Sudzha” gas metering station. This station is part of the infrastructure for the main Russian pipeline still pumping gas to Europe through Ukraine.
• West of the checkpoint, the AFU quickly advanced deep into Russian territory, reaching the highway near Sverdlikovo that connects the town of Rylsk to the city of Sudzha. Here, the Ukrainian forces came under Russian airstrikes and tactical missile attacks.
• The Ukrainian incursion force’s main contingent then turned towards Rylsk. Traveling along the highway, the AFU occupied the towns of Leonidovo and Zelenyi Shliakh. Pro-invasion bloggers reported that the AFU’s forward units reached the outskirts of Korenovo, a town further along the highway to Rylsk, but Meduza could not confirm these claims.
• At the time of this writing, despite rumors and panicked reports from these bloggers (known in Russia as voenkory, or “war correspondents”), the AFU has not yet entered (and possibly never even attempted to enter) the city of Sudzha itself, although Ukraine’s incursion force approached it from the west (and reportedly from the south). At the same time, Ukrainian shelling inflicted heavy damage on parts of the city, where many civilians remain.
• After breaking through the first thin line of Russia’s defenses, the AFU (likely trying to mimic its successes in the Balakliia-Kupiansk offensive of 2022) deployed assault and sabotage groups along the roads around Sudzha to disorganize Russia’s rear guard and slow the approach of reserve troops.
• By the evening of August 7, a large contingent of Russian reserves (who likely would have arrived in the breakthrough area within the first hours or days of Ukraine’s incursion — if they’d been available) still had not yet entered the fight.