What Russia Is Willing to Do in Kursk to Retake Lost Ground

Ukraine’s General Staff confirmed on March 16 that its forces had withdrawn from Sudzha, the main logistical hub of the Kursk offensive. This marked a significant step in the larger withdrawal from Russia’s Kursk region. 

However, some Ukrainian-held territory in the region remained under their control as the withdrawal continued. The announcement halted a 221-day operation that exposed a brutal reality: Russia’s willingness to use destructive clearing tactics even on its soil.

Faced with the unexpected loss of territory—a direct challenge to Russia’s image of strength and dominance—Russian forces scrambled to stop Ukraine’s rapid advance into the Kursk region, which borders Ukraine’s Sumy region.

At its peak, Ukrainian forces controlled approximately 1,376 square kilometers of Russian territory in the Kursk region, including 100 settlements. In Sudzha, an estimated 2,000 civilians remained under Ukrainian control as of September 2024, many of them elderly or ill who evacuated to the city. These civilians received daily humanitarian assistance from the Ukrainian Armed Forces, including food and medicine.

Pressure mounting

When Ukrainian forces dug in and attempted to hold the territory, Russian infantry assaults—bolstered by North Korean soldiers—failed to achieve the swift reclamation the Kremlin needed to erase the humiliation of losing its land. 

Each day that the Kursk region remained under Ukrainian control directly challenged Russia’s propaganda, which for years had portrayed the war as distant and under control. For Ukraine, it was an opportunity to undermine the Kremlin’s carefully crafted image of order and security—proof that the war had come to Russia. 

Not since World War II had a foreign army invaded Russia—now a nuclear superpower—until Ukraine shattered that precedent, challenging Moscow’s red lines and exposing the fragility of its borders.

As pressure mounted on Russia’s generals, they resorted to the tactics they knew best: leveling entire towns and settlements with massive guided aerial bombs and relentless artillery barrages. Anything that could provide Ukrainian forces cover was systematically destroyed including the homes of those who fled and remained. 

When Russian troops finally entered Sudzha, the largest settlement under Ukrainian control, they planted their flags atop the tallest pile of rubble they could find. From the vantage point of a Russian surveillance drone, the devastation was indistinguishable from scenes across eastern Ukraine or anywhere along the 2,000-kilometer front line—a landscape of destruction that had become Russia’s signature.

The doctrine of destructive clearing

For Russia, Kursk was not just about reclaiming lost territory—it was about ensuring that Ukraine could never hold it again. The Kremlin’s approach followed a well-worn pattern: overwhelming firepower first, infantry second. Cities and settlements were not meant to be retaken intact; they were meant to be leveled so no defender could use them.

This strategy, often referred to as destructive clearing, has been a staple of Russian warfare for decades. From Grozny in 1999 to Aleppo in 2016 to Mariupol in 2022, Russia has consistently chosen annihilation over maneuver warfare, flattening entire urban areas before sending in troops to claim the ashes. 

The same approach was used in the Donetsk region’s Bakhmut and Avdiivka, grinding down defenses with relentless artillery before sending in waves of infantry to plant a flag over the rubble. 

Kursk was no different—except this time, Russia was using these tactics on its land. Ukrainian General Staff reported that on March 17, 2025, Russia dropped 18 guided aerial bombs across the Kursk region, including massive 3,000-kilogram bombs capable of wiping out entire settlements.

The objective was simple: deny Ukraine any strategic gain. If Russia couldn’t reclaim Kursk’s settlements intact, it would erase them instead. Ukrainian forces, entrenched in Russian villages, were bombarded by guided aerial bombs and sustained artillery barrages, ensuring that whatever infrastructure existed when Ukraine first entered would no longer be there when they left.

Strategic impact

A February 6, 2025 report from the US-based think tank Institute for the Study of War highlighted how Ukraine’s limited incursion into the Kursk region had far-reaching consequences on the battlefield. Despite committing only a relatively small force, Ukraine managed to complicate Russian operations, forcing Moscow to divert elite airborne and naval infantry units away from more critical offensives. This disruption slowed Russia’s ability to launch new attacks and weakened its reinforcements elsewhere along the front.

For over seven months, Russian commanders were forced to react, stretching their forces thin to deal with a problem they hadn’t anticipated. The incursion proved that even a modest Ukrainian presence on Russian soil could force costly adjustments to Moscow’s military planning. 

It also reinforced the idea that maneuver warfare —thought to be largely dead in the current stage of the war—was still possible under the right conditions. By leveraging speed, technology, and surprise, Ukraine was able to hold territory in Russia long enough to create a strategic ripple effect across the front.

Beyond its immediate impact, the operation challenged the assumption that the war had reached a permanent stalemate. Ukraine’s ability to penetrate Russian defenses and maintain pressure in Kursk showed that the right combination of tactics and Western military support could allow for further gains. 

But the operation also carried a stark warning: if Ukraine’s access to aid and advanced weaponry falters, Russia’s advantage in sheer firepower and willingness to destroy everything in its path could allow the Kremlin to regain the initiative—at a devastating cost.