Frontline report: Ukraine’s ambush crushes Russians racing to save North Koreans trapped without supplies in Kursk
Today, there are a lot of interesting updates from the Kursk direction.
Here, after spending too much time fighting alongside North Korean troops, the Russians have started borrowing their tactics in a desperate attempt to break the siege on their stranded allies in the hamlet of Nikolsky. But as they charged forward in human waves, draped in Soviet flags and heading straight into Ukrainian fire, the rescue mission quickly turned into yet another battlefield catastrophe.
The goal of the Russian forces in this area is to reach the village of Nikolsky and relieve the North Korean soldiers stuck on the outer edges of the settlement, left over from the previous assaults. This is because Ukrainians maintain strict fire control over all supply lines to Nikolsky, leaving the North Koreans completely cut off from resupply for over a week now. To prevent Ukrainians from capturing a large part of the North Korean contingent, Russians attempted to link up with their allies by launching a massive mechanized assault over the fields.
Russians hoped that mechanized assault units would be able to provide enough of a firepower advantage through their tanks and BMP infantry fighting vehicles to expand their area of control and relieve the North Koreans. The main advantage of the Russian forces in this area is the extremely cold weather, which has caused the ground to freeze solid, enabling Russian armor to move freely across the fields instead of being restricted to the heavily mined roads.
Ukrainians set a trap
Furthermore, if we look at the topographic map, we can see that the Russian approaches are largely shielded from Ukrainian firing positions by a hill ridge, which protects them from targeting by Ukrainian ATGM positions for a large portion of their journey. However, once they cross the ridge, the Russian forces are directly exposed to Ukrainian fire from the eastern hill ridge, which allows Ukrainian forces to fire on top of the armored assault groups. Additionally, the lack of tree lines in this last part of the journey gives the Russians no cover for the most dangerous portion of their assault.
Unfortunately for the Russians, Ukrainians decided to make this already deadly kill zone even worse. They used remote mining techniques with drones and artillery to scatter a large number of landmines across these fields, effectively extending the minefield from around the roads to cover the entire field. Additionally, the clear weather allowed Ukrainians to increase their drone surveillance in the area, enabling them to detect Russian assaults even before they reached the hill.
Russians only made their situation worse
Geolocated combat footage reveals how Russian forces launched mechanized assaults using several BTR armored personnel carriers and tanks. However, the column quickly came under attack by Ukrainian precision strikes, including kamikaze drones, landmines, and artillery fire.
Notably, Russian soldiers adorned their tanks and vehicles with Soviet flags, attempting to recreate the mass charges of the past. However, as many of the Russian armored personnel carriers and tanks were rapidly disabled, Russian soldiers resorted to advancing across open fields on foot.
These human wave formations, similar to previous North Korean assaults, ended in complete disaster for the Russian infantry. The Russian vehicles that survived the initial ambush pressed forward but were also quickly disabled and destroyed by Ukrainian precision fire, leaving dozens of wrecked vehicles scattered across the fields near Nikolsky. The besieged North Koreans could do nothing but watch the disaster unfold.
Overall, the Russians conducted a disastrous assault on Nikolsky in the hope of relieving the cut-off of North Korean forces. However, their plan backfired because Ukrainians meticulously prepared a kill zone to efficiently deal with the Russian assault. These losses only further drain the already limited Russian reserves, while Ukrainians maintain powerful defensive positions that stand despite the intense pressure.
As the attempt to resupply the North Koreans in Nikolsky failed, the survivors of the latest Russian assault will only add to the supply issues, with more mouths to feed and wounded to take care of.
In our regular frontline report, we pair up with the military blogger Reporting from Ukraine to keep you informed about what is happening on the battlefield in the Russo-Ukrainian war.
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