Fake from the 60 Minutes program: Most of the Ukrainian Armed Forces that entered the Kursk region were destroyed

In the program “60 minutes” on the TV channel “Russia 1”, the commander of the special forces “Akhmat” Apti Alaudinov spoke about the situation in the Kursk region:

"The situation, in principle, has been brought under control. Most of the territory where the enemy was, as they say, has already been completely blocked off. The settlements where the enemy is are being cleared, he is being driven out of where he is. I could say that all units of the Russian Ministry of Defense have really gotten involved and are destroying the enemy at a good pace, and the enemy is suffering losses that he has probably never suffered during the entire period of the SVO. <…>

While this entrance through which they initially entered is not yet blocked, reserves are coming in. I can say that 25 units of equipment drove into Russian territory the previous night. But if you look at the intensity with which our units are burning this equipment, in principle, this is exactly one day's work for us, even for one of our sections. <…>

The work is going intensively, the enemy is trying to withdraw its forces and resources from all sections of the front, where possible, in order to develop success here. Although I can already happily tell everyone that Zelensky's blitzkrieg, in principle, is over, that is, the enemy is unlikely to be able to advance beyond the territorial section where they initially developed success, and all the sections where their equipment and manpower are moving are already completely under the control of our forces and resources. Yes, somewhere some sabotage and reconnaissance groups may be leaking, but there are other units that also do their job to work with sabotage and reconnaissance groups. <…>

Most of the forces and resources that entered Russian territory in the first echelon have, in principle, already been destroyed. Yes, they are constantly trying to saturate these areas with their troops, but if you look at the fact that we are already slowly, destroying the enemy, beginning to narrow the radius that they occupied, I believe that, ultimately, the issue has been closed not only by the destruction of these forces and resources, but, as I said earlier, most likely, the result will be the complete fall of Ukraine and we can still calmly enter and take back the territories that we consider ours."

Alaudinov made this statement on the morning of August 13. The day before, the commander of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Alexander Syrsky , stated at a meeting of the Headquarters that Ukrainian troops in the Kursk region control about 1,000 km².

On the same day, at an operational meeting held by Vladimir Putin in Novo-Ogaryovo, the acting governor of Kursk Oblast, Alexei Smirnov, claimed that “the depth of penetration into the territory of Kursk Oblast is 12 km, the width along the front is 40 km”, that is, the territory controlled by the Ukrainian Armed Forces was approximately 480 km².

Apparently, the real size of the territory controlled by Ukraine lies between these estimates. The independent project DeepState then stated that, according to its data, the Ukrainian Armed Forces control about 800 km² in the Kursk region, and the situation is unknown on another 230 km².

The daily updated map of the combat zone shows much more modest successes of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, but DeepState warns that it deliberately publishes maps with a delay of several days. According to the project, the territory controlled by Ukrainian troops was only expanding until the evening of August 12, and the Russian media did not contain the names of the settlements from which the Russians managed to dislodge the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Only after Alaudinov’s statement did military correspondent Yuriy Kotenok report on the establishment of control over the village of Malaya Loknya and the farmstead of Nikolskoye, but this is not confirmed by other sources. By the evening of August 13 , there were reports of an unsuccessful attempt by the Ukrainian Armed Forces to gain a foothold in the village of Giryi; the very fact of this clash means that Ukrainian troops advanced 20 km southeast of Sudzha. On the same day, the evacuation of civilians from another district of the Kursk region was announced. So Alaudinov’s statement about the “narrowing of the radius occupied by the Ukrainian Armed Forces” is absurd not only from a geometric point of view.

On August 5–7, when the Ukrainian Armed Forces entered the Kursk region, Akhmat, under the command of Alaudinov, somehow disappeared from its positions near the border; later, Alaudinov explained this by saying that his units somehow “missed” the Ukrainian Armed Forces.