RU POV: Russian advances from Day 967 and 968 of the War - Suriyakmaps

Beginning with the Kupyansk front, building on their success from the previous day, Russian entered Kruhlyakivka (bottom red dot), capturing the first few houses on the north side. This gives Russia a foothold in both Kruhlyakivka and Kolisnykivka (red dot under y), although they are more likely to try capture the former first, as the latter is split in half by the Pishchana River (bridges destroyed in 2022.

Picture 2: Top Left Advance = 9.37km2, Top Middle Advance = 2.53km2, Bottom Right Advance = 3.00km2

On the Kursk front, we finally received confirmation that Russian troops have cleared Tolstyi Lug and the surrounding fields (east of Pokovskii), as well as capturing the remainder of Novoivaniovka (red dot above i). There were also some clashes ongoing around Viktorovka, which I briefly mentioned in the previous post, part of which can be seen here. Some Russian sources have pre-emptively claimed Viktorovka is captured, and Ukraine is encircled in the northern area, although as of Day 967 fighting is ongoing. There is still a high risk that Ukraine will be encircled here, if they do not hold Viktorovka and Malaya Loknya.

On the southeast side of the front, Russian troops recaptured the rest of Russkaya Konopelka, and began probing towards the small village of Agronom (blue dot Northwest of Russkaya Konopelka). Russia never lost control of the whole of the village, retaining control of the eastern area, although most of Russkaya Konopelka has sat in the grey zone since Ukraine launched multiple assaults there 2 months ago.

With the recapture of Russkaya Konopelka (see above), and Cherkasskaya Konopelka (from a few days ago), Russia is now closing in on the eastern side of Sudzha. Ukrainian troops are reported to be rapidly fortifying the town, as a siege is likely. This complicates Ukraine’s position in Kursk, as it forces them to allocate troops to defending the southeastern side of the front, rather than trying to deal with the larger Russian advances in the north.

On the Oskil River front, Russian troops made a small advance towards Novosadove, capturing some fields. This follows on from their advances in this area a few days ago, as they close in on Novosadove.

Over in Tsukuryne, Russian assault groups have captured the last of the houses of the town, confirming their control, as well as the eastern farm buildings. This just leaves the warehouses of the western farms (West of this advance), before Russia can be considered to confidently control the town, and move onto Kreminna Balka.

Following on from the capture of Makysymilianivka in the previous update, Russian forces moved south through the fields, reaching the main road to Kurakhove. As with most city and town battles, the defender maintaining their positions in the immediate vicinity of the settlement after losing control of the settlement itself is not feasible, and thus they are forced to retreat back. The same has happened here, with Russia quickly expanding the buffer around the town as Ukraine moves back south (towards the stream) and west (towards Kurakhove). The greyzone east of this advance was likely taken by Russia as well, but as of Suriyak making this update confirmation hadn’t been received quite yet.

On the Kupyansk front, Russian troops have continued gradually clearing the forest west of Synkivka, capturing another section. As with all forest battles, the dense tree cover limits the usage and effectiveness of drones, vehicles and artillery, meaning a most of the work in capturing and clearing enemy positions is reliant on infantry. As I’ve mentioned before, Russia needs to clear out Ukrainian positions in this forest, up to the Oskil River, in order to secure their flank before they can even think of attacking Kupyansk (just off map bottom left).

slightly further south of the previous picture, following on from Picture 1, Russian forces launched 2 separate mechanised assaults into Kruhlyakivka, capturing most of the town. There were a few videos of these assaults, although the Ukrainian one is too over edited to tell whats going on (and they lie about repelling it and doing significant damage) and the Russian one hasn’t been posted to the sub yet.

As has become standard on most fronts, once Russia actually gets a foothold in a settlement, their pace of advance increases, and it falls far quicker than it takes them to reach the settlement in the first place. This occurs due to Ukraine being mostly reliant on ranged weapons (almost entirely drones) to stop Russian advances, with their lack of infantry and poorly trained troops not being able to effectively defend settlements once urban fighting begins.

With this advance, Russia has now effectively cut this front in half, capturing the main supply and transportation road from Kupyansk. Whilst Russia is not quite at the Oskil River yet, still being about 500m away, the remaining area sits in the grey zone due to Ukraine’s inability to access it (due to how the town is laid out), and the last 300m is unusable marsh/wetland (pic below).

This complicates Ukrainian operations in this area, as to rotate units and assault groups around, they now have to travel all the way around on the other side of the Oskil River. For an example, if Ukraine’s 115th Mechanised Brigade, operating in Kolisnykivka, wants to attack Russian positions in Kruhlyakivka, they now need to go back up to Kupyansk, travel all the way south to the pontoon bridges near Borova, then back up to Kruhlyakivka. At best this would still take most of a day to move a single assault group, and also means that if they are suddenly needed in Kolisnykivka again due to a Russian attack, it will take them too long to return. Thus, Ukrainian units here are now split, and cannot effectively reinforce or support the ones of the other side of the Russian spearhead.

Over on the Pokrovsk front, Russian troops restarted their attacks towards Vozdvyzhenka (blue dot), capturing the farm warehouses on the outskirts of the village. Russian attacks in this area stopped back in July, as Russian command’s focus, and the unit here, switched their attention to attacking west, resulting in the breakthrough at Prohres that led to this front being what it is today. For now I’d be cautious about talking of a Russian assault of Vozdvyzhenka, as Ukraine still holds strong positions in the village, and the Bychok River, which runs just outside of it, ,ales breaking into Vozdvyzhenka difficult (pic below).

On the Selydove/Kurakhove front, Russian forces have been confirmed to have cleared most of the fields east of the Vovcha River, which were abandoned by Ukraine a little while ago. For now Ukraine has pulled back into Zoryane and Oleksandropil, taking up defensive positions along the banks of the rivers. The Russian MoD recently claimed Russia had captured Zoryane, to the surprise of many, although there is no evidence of this. Suriyak says the assault is ongoing, and will update the map when more information comes through.

Following on from Picture 5, Russian troops were confirmed to have captured most of the fields south of Makysymilianivka, increasing the buffer around the town. They will likely attempt to push south to at least the streamline, before turning their attention west to Kurakhove.

To the south, in Katerynivka, after capturing the fields and treelines on the edge of the town, Russian assault groups began their attacks into Katerynivka, taking control of the eastern streets. There are reports than some assault groups have even reached the centre of the town, however it is unknown whether they were able to establish positions there, hence the greyzone.

On the Vuhledar front, Russian troops captured another small field northwest of the town.