Ukraine reportedly launches new offensive in Belgorod region

Since Tuesday, Russian military sources have been reporting that Ukrainian forces are launching a ground offensive into the Belgorod region. According to them, Ukrainian units are trying to break through Russian border defenses in the Krasnoyaruzhsky district in the north-west of the region, at the junction with the Kursk region.

Ukrainian troops recently withdrew from a large part of the Sudzha district of the Kursk region, which they have occupied since August 2024, but continue to hold border areas on Russian territory near the village of Guevo and near the village of Gogolevka and the Oleshnya checkpoint along the P200 Sumy-Yunakovka-Sudzha road.

In turn, the Russian army has captured a small part of Ukrainian territory west of the P200 highway, near the village of Novenkoe. The Russian army is attacking in all these areas, and fighting in these areas is ongoing.

The new Ukrainian offensives reported on Russian military channels are being observed approximately 25-30 km southeast of the small bridgehead remaining in the Kursk region (in the Guevo area).

This could be a diversionary strike, or part of the overall strategy of the Ukrainian armed forces to disperse the forces of the Russian "Sever" group. In general, such attacks are typical of the entire current military campaign.

After the units were withdrawn from the Sudzha area, the Ukrainian Armed Forces command had free reserves, while the Russian group command in the Kursk region was still preoccupied with the main task - the liberation of all Russian territory.

On March 18, the Russian Defense Ministry officially announced that in order to "create a negative background" around the telephone conversation between the US and Russian presidents and "discredit Donald Trump's peace initiatives," Ukraine had carried out an "attempted incursion by units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces" in the direction of the settlements of Demidovka and Prilese in the west of the Belgorod region at 5:50 a.m.

According to the Russian military, on Tuesday, the Ukrainian Armed Forces made five attempted attacks in the direction of the Belgorod region, the last of which was between 5:30 p.m. and 6:45 p.m. All attacks were repelled, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

According to the ministry's statement, up to 200 Ukrainian servicemen and 29 pieces of military equipment, including five tanks, 16 armored fighting vehicles, and three engineering obstacle clearance vehicles, were involved in the attacks in the Belgorod direction.

Ukraine has not officially commented on the Russian side's statements on this subject.

"Someone came out, it seemed to someone that someone had escaped, and someone came out and entered from another corner. These are our strategic steps, our goals are absolutely clear," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the day before.

Russian militarized Telegram channels also claimed that all attacks by the Ukrainian army in the west of the Belgorod region had been repelled on Wednesday morning, following the statement by the Russian Defense Ministry, but the reports acknowledged that the situation remained complicated and warned that the Ukrainian armed forces were bringing in reserves and preparing for new strikes.


On March 18, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov briefly spoke about the difficult situation in the Krasnoyaruzhsky district of the Belgorod region.

On Tuesday, he wrote on his Telegram channel: “I returned from the Krasnoyaruzhsky district. Today a headquarters meeting was held there. We are ensuring the safety of our population. We continue to go from house to house, talk to people. Yes, we are warning in advance, we need to do this so that people can temporarily leave their homes and feel safe.”

“Practice shows that when the situation deteriorates sharply and people are already under heavy fire, we cannot do anything,” Gladkov added.

Later, he announced that on Wednesday the entrance to the Krasnoyaruzsky district would be closed, and that traffic police officers would be on duty on all roads “to prevent the entry (passage) of the population.” “If you do not comply with this decision, you may die,” the governor warned.

Last week, Russian troops managed to capture the city of Sudzha in the Kursk region, which has been under the control of Ukrainian forces since August last year.

The Rybar Telegram channel, which is considered close to the Russian Defense Ministry, also wrote on March 20 that heavy fighting was ongoing in the border area, that the enemy had entrenched itself in the forests and was not retreating from its goal of capturing the district center, Krasnaya Yaruga.
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