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HOW RUSSIA LOOKED THE WRONG WAY AS UKRAINE INVADED

By Mark Trevelyan, Anastasiia Malenko and Gleb Stolyarov
August 17, 20241:57 AM HSTUpdated 3 hours ago
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Item 1 of 14 Seym river, Kursk region, Russia. Ukraine Air Force Commander
Mykola Oleshchuki/via REUTERS
[1/14]Seym river, Kursk region, Russia. Ukraine Air Force Commander Mykola
Oleshchuki/via REUTERS Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab

 * Summary
 * Companies

 * Attack sowed panic as thousands fled, some went missing
 * Acting governor issued false reassurances
 * Army chief was focused on next moves inside Ukraine
 * Putin silent for whole of incursion's first day

LONDON/KYIV, Aug 17 (Reuters) - In the hours before Ukrainian soldiers stormed
across Russia's western border, there was no sign from Moscow that anything was
amiss.
At midnight at the start of Aug. 6, the Russian defence ministry posted good
news: more than 2,500 members of the regiment responsible for the capture of a
town in eastern Ukraine would receive state awards for heroism.
Later that morning, as Ukraine began the biggest invasion of Russia since World
War Two, the ministry published video showing General Valery Gerasimov,
commander of the Russian war effort, visiting a different combat zone, also in
Ukraine. He heard reports from commanders and set "tasks for further actions",
it said.
Advertisement · Scroll to continue

The footage did not specify the exact time of the visit, but revealed no
concerns, or knowledge, of the events unfolding in Russia's western Kursk region
that threatened to upset Gerasimov's plans and shift the course of the
two-and-a-half-year war.

Valery Gerasimov inspects Russian troops, August 6, 2024. Russian Defence
Ministry Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
Panic spread quickly among local Russian residents in the early hours of the
assault, despite repeated attempts by authorities to assure them that everything
was under control, according to a timeline by Reuters of the first two days of
the incursion, based on public statements, social media posts and analysis of
video footage.
Advertisement · Scroll to continue

The idea that Ukraine could turn the tables on Russia and burst onto the
territory of its much bigger neighbour seemed unthinkable to most observers
before last week. The shock operation has raised questions about the
effectiveness of Russia's surveillance, as well as the calibre of its border
fortifications and the forces guarding them.
"The Russians had a complete intelligence failure here," French military expert
Yohann Michel, research fellow at the IESD institute in Lyon, said in an
interview.

With Ukraine's forces retreating in eastern Ukraine, one of the most strategic
sectors of the front line, Moscow may well have assumed Kyiv would not make a
high-stakes gamble that even now it is far from clear will pay off, Michel said.
"I would understand if it was difficult for the Russians to think something that
big could happen," he said.
Ukrainian goals in Kursk include distracting Russian forces from the front line
in the eastern region of Donetsk. Instead, fighting has intensified in that
region in recent days, and the risks for Ukraine are rising as it tries to hold
ground in Kursk.

A Russian member of parliament and former military officer, Andrei Gurulyov,
said in a television interview two days after the incursion that Russian
military leaders had been warned in a report about a month beforehand that there
were signs of preparations for a Ukrainian attack, but it was not heeded.
The Russian defence ministry did not reply to requests for comment. Ukraine's
armed forces declined to comment about the ongoing operations, and the U.S.
State Department, Pentagon and White House did not immediately respond to
questions.

It was not until the afternoon of the following day, Aug. 7, that President
Vladimir Putin and Gerasimov, his armed forces chief of staff, made their first
public remarks on the Kursk events, which the Kremlin leader called "another
major provocation" by Ukraine.
Gerasimov, fresh from his ill-timed trip, told Putin in the televised comments
that Russian forces had "stopped" a force of up to 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers from
thrusting deep inside Kursk region.
Michel, the military analyst, said it was unclear whether Gerasimov was
misinformed by his own subordinates, or whether he felt compelled to deliver
good news to Putin in front of the TV cameras.
Russian officials in such staged settings "say what they think the boss wants to
hear or to see in public at that specific moment", Michel said.

Vladimir Putin in a Ukraine briefing. Moscow, August 7, 2024. Sputnik/Gavriil
Grigorov Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab


"WE ADVISE PEOPLE TO LEAVE"

It took nearly 12 hours from the time of the incursion, which Gerasimov stated
as 5:30 a.m. on Aug. 6, for the defence ministry to publicly acknowledge Ukraine
had attacked the border, let alone broken through it.
It was left to Kursk's acting regional governor Alexei Smirnov, only months into
the job, to fill the communications vacuum and try to coordinate with the
multiple defence and security agencies responsible for protecting the border.
In the first of many Telegram posts on Aug. 6, Smirnov issued missile warnings
at 1:51 and 3:11 a.m. local time, urging residents to take cover. At 3:15, he
said air defences had knocked out three incoming Ukrainian drones. At 6:16, 11
more.
Regions either side of the border have long grown used to tit-for-tat missile
and drone attacks. But strikes against the Kursk region, recorded by Smirnov in
Telegram posts, had been more than usually persistent for the previous 10 days.
Among the targets hit were oil depots, power substations and, according to the
Ukrainian military, a storage facility for weapons and military equipment.
From about 5 a.m., alarm began to spread on social media. Locals posted that
shelling in Sudzha, a Russian town on the border, had been going on for three
hours.

Sudzha, August 7, 2024. MIC Izvestia / IZ.RU Purchase Licensing Rights, opens
new tab
"What's going on with the lights? I've got no light or water," said a woman
posting as "Ekaterina Picasa". A user called Denis reported nine explosions in
Korenevo, about 26 km (16 miles) from the border.
Reuters made multiple attempts to contact residents via social media, but these
were ignored or blocked.
A stream of posts appeared in "Native Sudzha", a community channel on the social
network VKontakte, but it was not clear whether the information was from
official sources. "We advise people to leave the town," said one such message at
7:34 a.m. People were warned to beware of drones and watch out for unexploded
shells.

Kursk evacuees, Azov, August 12, 2024. REUTERS/Sergey Pivovarov Purchase
Licensing Rights, opens new tab
By 8:15 a.m. Native Sudzha was reporting "active fighting on the border itself".
But a widely read Russian war blog was dismissive.
The "Two Majors" Telegram channel, followed by more than a million people, said
a small group of "the enemy" had managed to get only as far as 300 metres inside
Russia and was "being destroyed". It suggested the operation was being staged by
Ukrainian "TikTok units" as a media exercise.
Ukraine's government has said little about the planning of the incursion.

Near the Russian border, Sumy region, Ukraine, August 11, 2024.
REUTERS/Viacheslav Ratynskyi Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
In May, shortly after Russian troops crossed the border and seized territory in
the nearby Kharkiv region, Ukraine's military intelligence chief publicly warned
of small groups of Russian forces gathering around the Sudzha area and said
Moscow had planned an operation into Ukraine's Sumy region from there.
Reuters could not independently verify whether Russia had been preparing an
offensive into Sumy.
On Friday, Ukraine's paratrooper corps said its fighters spent the first hours
of the operation demining, breaching the border and destroying defensive lines,
using aviation and artillery.
"Careful preparation, planning, surprise, fighting spirit and informational
silence became decisive in the initial stage of the operation," the Airborne
Assault Troops said in an online post.
A Ukrainian soldier called Dmytro, 36, said he initially thought the Ukrainian
army's build-up was to prevent a Russian cross-border raid.
Instead, he found himself supporting the advance toward the border crossing near
Sudzha after the assault units moved in, he said in an interview, giving his
only first name in line with military protocol.
"We worked to pre-empt them and they did not see this coming at all," he said.

Near the Russian border, Sumy region, Ukraine August 11, 2024.
REUTERS/Viacheslav Ratynskyi Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab


"UNDER CONTROL"

Just after 10 a.m. governor Smirnov confirmed for the first time that Ukraine
had attempted an incursion but said Russian soldiers and border guards of the
FSB security service had "prevented" the border from being breached.
It was the first of numerous statements that were to be quickly disproved by
events.
Just before noon, the defence ministry published its video of Gerasimov visiting
Russian forward positions in Ukraine. On events in Kursk, it was silent.
So too was the Kremlin, with spokesman Dmitry Peskov on a summer break and
reporters left without his usual daily briefing. As of Aug. 16, 10 days later,
he had not returned to work.
"Tell me please, is it true that Ukrainian tanks have broken through to Sudzha
and Darino?", a user, "Nestik", posted on Telegram.
Smirnov posted that help was being provided to residents of areas that had been
struck overnight by missiles and drones. "The situation is under control," he
wrote at 12:46 p.m.
About an hour later, Russian news agencies published the first word from the
central authorities about the situation. It was from the FSB, saying Russia had
"repelled an armed provocation."
By now, however, an exodus was under way. Sudzha residents were "leaving en
masse", a woman called Anna said on Telegram.
"Of course. Everyone wants to live," someone replied.
In the chaos, some were left behind. A search network, Liza Alert, said it has
posted over 100 "missing" notices for people who have disappeared since Aug. 6,
including many pensioners in their 70s and 80s.

Kursk region, Russia, August 16, 2024. The sign reads: "There are peaceful
people in the basement, there are no soldiers". REUTERS/Yan Dobronosov Purchase
Licensing Rights, opens new tab


DRAGON'S TEETH

Smirnov's predecessor as governor, Roman Starovoit, had repeatedly told the
public that Russia had boosted its border fortifications in Kursk region.
In December 2022, he posed in a snowy field beside pyramid-shaped "dragon's
teeth" anti-tank defences. The following month, he wrote: "Right now the risk of
an armed invasion of the territory of Kursk region from Ukraine is not high.
However, we are constantly working to strengthen the region’s defense
capabilities."
Yet last fall Ukraine's National Resistance Center, created by the special
operations forces, said in an online post that reconnaissance showed "almost all
the strongholds are deserted of personnel and equipment" along the border with
Kursk, and said corruption was a factor.
The video published by Ukraine's paratroopers showed columns of armored vehicles
pouring in through rows of dragon’s teeth, part of fortifications in Kursk that
Russia media outlets have said cost 15 billion roubles ($168 million).
Pasi Paroinen, an analyst with Finland's Black Bird Group, said the video
appeared to show mine-clearing line charges blowing paths through minefields,
dozer blades on armoured vehicles used to clear paths through the dragon's teeth
and bridging vehicles to cross ditches and small rivers.
“It's clear that substantial amounts of different engineer equipment were
prepared and used," said Paroinen, who studies publicly available footage from
the Russia-Ukraine war.
Brady Africk, a U.S. analyst mapping Russia’s defences, said those in Kursk
region had fewer anti-vehicle ditches, obstacles and fighting positions when
compared to Russian positions in occupied southern Ukraine, where a Ukrainian
counteroffensive stalled last summer.

Sudzha border crossing, August 1, 2024 Planet Labs Inc Purchase Licensing
Rights, opens new tab
"It was likely easier for Ukrainian forces to progress around and through
Russia's fortifications in the region, especially if they were manned by fewer
or poorly trained personnel," he said.


SHARED RESPONSIBILITY

Responsibility for defending the Russian border is shared between regular
troops, FSB border forces and the national guard. Governor Smirnov was
apparently referring to these various agencies when he said on mid-afternoon of
the first day that he had met with "representatives of the security structures".
Already, he was backtracking from his initial line that they had prevented the
border from being pierced. "The situation in the border area remains difficult,
but our defenders are successfully working to destroy the enemy," Smirnov said.
At 5:05 p.m., the defence ministry mentioned the incursion for the first time
and said Russia had transferred reserves to the area.

A Ukrainian serviceman stands on a Wagner flag, Sumy region, Ukraine August 13,
2024. REUTERS/Viacheslav Ratynskyi Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
"Troops covering the state border, together with units of the border troops of
the FSB of Russia, are repelling the attacks and inflicting fire on the enemy in
the area of the state border and on its reserves in the Sumy region (of
Ukraine)," it said.
At the briefing on Aug. 7, Gerasimov told Putin: "The operation will end with
the smashing of the enemy, and (Russian forces) reaching the state border."
Ten days later, with more than 100,000 Russians displaced and Ukraine claiming
control of more than 1,000 sq km (390 sq miles) of Kursk region, Moscow's forces
are still far from achieving that goal.
($1 = 89.3705 roubles)

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Reporting by Mark Trevelyan in London, Anastasiia Malenko in Kyiv, Gleb
Stolyarov in Tbilisi; Additional reporting by Felix Light in Tbilisi and Lucy
Papachristou in London, Jonathan Landay and Idrees Ali in Washington; Writing by
Mark Trevelyan; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel

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Mark Trevelyan

Thomson Reuters

Chief writer on Russia and CIS. Worked as a journalist on 7 continents and
reported from 40+ countries, with postings in London, Wellington, Brussels,
Warsaw, Moscow and Berlin. Covered the break-up of the Soviet Union in the
1990s. Security correspondent from 2003 to 2008. Speaks French, Russian and
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