Documents seized by the Ukrainian army from abandoned Russian positions in the Kursk region reveal that the Russian military leadership had been anticipating a Ukrainian incursion across the border and planning to repel it for months.
As the documents, seen by the newspaper, show, The Guardian The British newspaper published its content, about the growing concern of the Russian leadership about the decline in morale among its soldiers in the Kursk region.
This concern was exacerbated by the suicide of a soldier at the front, as it turned out that he was suffering from “chronic depression as a result of his service in the Russian army,” according to the same source.
The documents also reveal instructions to unit commanders to ensure Russian soldiers are exposed to Russian state media on a daily basis, in order to maintain their “psychological balance.”
The Guardian said it was unable to independently verify the authenticity of the documents, but noted that they bore the hallmarks of official Russian military correspondence.
The newspaper reported that a Ukrainian special operations team seized documents belonging to the Russian Interior Ministry, the Federal Security Service and the army from buildings in the Kursk region, and later provided it with a selection to review and photograph.
Some documents are printed orders distributed to different units, while others are handwritten records recording events and concerns at specific locations.
Warnings of attack
While Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk surprised Kyiv’s Western allies and many of the Ukrainian elite, Russian military documents have for months included warnings about a possible incursion into the area and an attempt to occupy Sudzha, a town of 5,000 people that has been under Ukrainian control for more than a month, the newspaper revealed.
A document dated January 4 spoke of the “possibility of breaching the state border” by Ukrainian armed groups, and ordered increased training to prepare for any attack.
In mid-March, units on the border were ordered to strengthen defense lines and “organize additional training for commanding units and strong points regarding the proper organization of defenses” in preparation for a Ukrainian cross-border offensive.
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In mid-June, a more specific warning of Ukrainian plans was issued: “an offensive in the direction of Yunakivka-Sudzha, with the aim of capturing Sudzha,” which actually happened in August.
The Russian leadership in the region also expected that Ukraine would try to destroy a bridge over the Sim River to disrupt Russian supply lines in the region, which is what happened later as well.
Russian military personnel complained in a June document that Russian units stationed at the front “are only 60-70 percent full on average, and consist mainly of poorly trained reservists.”
The newspaper reported that following the Ukrainian attack in early August, many Russian soldiers abandoned their positions, and within a week Ukraine took complete control of Sudzha.
“They fled, without even evacuating or destroying their documents,” said a member of the special operations team that seized the files.
During the chaotic Russian withdrawal, Ukrainian forces captured hundreds of Russian soldiers, many of them inexperienced conscripts.
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Misleading tactics and difficult psychological state
The documents also provide “insight” into Russian tactics over the past year, the newspaper said, in one case describing the need to create fake trenches and positions to mislead Ukrainian reconnaissance drones.
In addition to creating models of tanks, armored vehicles, artillery launchers, as well as dummies of soldiers, they periodically move them to camouflage the Russian forces.
Amidst its dry and complex official language, the documents reveal worrying indicators of deteriorating morale on the front, according to the newspaper.
“An analysis of the current situation shows that the phenomenon of military suicides remains a serious challenge,” a Russian military report said.
The document mentions a tragic incident that allegedly occurred on January 20 of this year, when a conscript soldier shot himself in the abdomen at a guard post.
The handwritten report states: “The investigation concluded that the suicide was the result of a mental and nervous breakdown, caused by a chronic depression linked to the soldier’s service in the Russian army.”
To reduce the recurrence of such incidents, unit commanders were instructed to identify soldiers “psychologically unfit to perform their duties or prone to deviant behavior, and arrange for their transfer to appropriate military medical facilities.”
An undated printed document also included additional instructions to maintain soldiers’ morale, which required allocating 5-10 minutes daily, in addition to an hour weekly, to political education, with the aim of “preserving and strengthening the political, moral and psychological state of individuals.”