Russian special forces crept through a disused gas pipeline for several miles to launch a surprise attack on Ukrainian soldiers in the Kursk region, Ukraine’s military and pro-Moscow war bloggers have said.
Footage circulating on the Telegram app claims to show the elite soldiers crouching as they make their way through the darkness of the pipe to the town of Sudzha.
Some can be heard cursing in Russian and complaining about the commanders who sent them on the mission.
One of the soldiers is heard saying: “F*****g hell, where the f*** are we, boys?”
Another says: “Where does the pipe go? To Sudzha, for f**** sake, that’s f***ing crazy.”
Later in the clip a soldier is heard saying: “We’ll get there of course, but indignantly, because we’re f*****g sick of the f*****g command.”
He later adds: “They took our f*****g assault rifles too.”
Two of the soldiers are seen smoking cigarettes while a separate image shared on Telegram shows an operative wearing a gas mask.
Image: The footage shows soldiers creeping through the pipeline
Image: Soldiers are seen smoking cigarettes
The special forces soldiers walked around nine miles (15km) through the pipeline which Moscow had until recently used to send gas to Europe, according to Telegram posts by Ukrainian-born pro-Kremlin blogger Yuri Podolyaka.
In the footage, the soldiers suggest the mission requires them to walk seven miles through the pipe.
Mr Podolyaka says some of them spent several days in the pipeline before striking Ukrainian units from the rear near Sudzha.
The operation formed part of efforts by Russia to recapture areas of Kursk which were seized by thousands of Ukrainian soldiers in a shock offensive in August last year.
Another pro-Russian war blogger, who uses the alias Two Majors, said a major battle is under way in Sudzha after Moscow’s special forces crept through the pipe.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s general staff confirmed on Saturday that Russian soldiers had used the pipeline in an attempt to gain a foothold, but airborne assault forces promptly detected them, and they responded with rocket, artillery and drone attacks that destroyed Moscow’s units.
“The enemy’s losses in Sudzha are very high,” the general staff reported.
Image: A close-up image of one of the soldiers in the pipeline
Image: The soldiers crept through the tunnel for several miles
It comes as Ukraine’s Air Assault Forces shared a video on Telegram on Saturday which it claims shows Kyiv’s forces repelling Russian forces in Kursk with airstrikes.
Sky News has not independently verified the footage.
Months after Kyiv’s forces seized parts of Kursk, Ukrainian soldiers are weary and bloodied by relentless assaults of more than 50,000 Russian troops, including some from Moscow’s ally North Korea.
Tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers run the risk of being encircled, open-source maps of the battlefield showed on Friday.
Meanwhile, Russia’s defence ministry said this morning that it had captured a settlement in Kursk and another in Ukraine’s Sumy region.
Russia also launched heavy aerial attacks overnight on Ukraine into Saturday – with at least 22 people killed, including 11 in the frontline town of Dobropilla in Ukraine’sembattled eastern Donetsk region.
The attacks come after the US paused military aid and the sharing of intelligencewith Ukraine this month after a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Mr Zelenskyy descended into a confrontation in front of the world’s media.
The Trump administration’s stance on Ukraine and apparent favouring of Moscow has sparked concern among European leaders.
Meanwhile, Russian officials have been criticised after presenting mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine with gifts of meat grinders on International Women’s Day.
Russia is often accused of throwing its troops into a “meat grinder” with little regard for their lives.
The local branch of government in the northwestern Russian town of Polyarniye Zori defended itself against the backlash, saying critics were making “callous and provocative interpretations” of the gifts.
“Complete families were wiped off the civil registration record by Israeli bombardment,” Khalil Al-Deqran, Gaza health ministry spokesperson, told the Reuters news agency.
Nasser hospital, in the southern city of Khan Younis, said it received the bodies of 20 people killed in strikes that hit houses and tents in the Muwasi area. Hamas described that as a “new brutal crime”.
Image: Smoking debris after an airstrike at a tent camp in Khan Younis, southern Gaza on Sunday. Pic: Reuters
Image: Saleh Zenati carries the body of his nephew killed in Khan Younis on Sunday. Pic: AP
In central Gaza, at least 10 people were killed in two separate strikes, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in the town of Deir al Balah.
Meanwhile, first responders from the health ministry and the civil defence reported at least 36 people were killed in multiple strikes in Jabalia, northern Gaza.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the latest strikes.
Israel has blocked the entry of medical, food and fuel supplies into Gaza since the start of March. It is attempting to pressurise Hamas into freeing Israeli hostages and has approved plans that could involve seizing the whole of Gaza and controlling aid.
It comes as peace talks between Israel and Hamas take place in Qatar this weekend, although sources told Reuters there had been no breakthrough.
Sky News Arabia reported that Hamas had proposed freeing about half its Israeli hostages in exchange for a two-month ceasefire and the release of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
A Palestinian official close to the talks said: “Hamas is flexible about the number of hostages it can free, but the problem has always been over Israel’s commitment to end the war.”
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3:14
On Saturday, Israel ramped up attacks on Gaza
Earlier on Sunday, Gaza’s health ministry issued a statement accusing Israel of “intensifying its systematic campaign to target hospitals”.
“After putting the European Gaza Hospital out of service a few days ago, the Israeli occupation has intensified its targeting and siege of the Indonesian Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip since dawn today,” it added.
Israel has previously denied deliberately targeting civilians and accused Hamas of using hospitals for military purposes.
This week, Israel said it had bombed the European Hospital because it was home to an underground Hamas base, but Sky News analysis has cast doubt on its evidence.
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0:49
Mass protests on Saturday mark 77 years since the Nakba
Separately, the Israeli military said on Sunday it had intercepted a missile launched from Yemen toward Israel.
Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis said they had targeted Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv with two ballistic missiles.
The Houthis have fired at Israel because of the plight of Palestinians in Gaza, while Israel has carried out airstrikes in response, including one on 6 May that damaged Yemen’s main airport in Sanaa and killed several people.
The conflict began on 7 October 2023, when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and abducting 251 others.
Israel’s military response has seen the deaths of more than 53,000 people, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants.
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.
Donald Trump has said he will speak to Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy separately on Monday in a bid to secure a ceasefire deal between Russia and Ukraine.
The US president made the announcement on Truth Social – shortly after the Ukrainian president condemned Russiafor the “deliberate killing of civilians” after a drone hit a bus in north-eastern Ukraine.
Mr Trump said he will speak to Mr Putin over the phone. He will then talk with Mr Zelenskyy and “various members of NATO”, he wrote.
In an all-caps post, he said: “HOPEFULLY IT WILL BE A PRODUCTIVE DAY, A CEASEFIRE WILL TAKE PLACE, AND THIS VERY VIOLENT WAR, A WAR THAT SHOULD HAVE NEVER HAPPENED, WILL END. GOD BLESS US ALL!!!”
The Ukrainian town of Bilopillia today declared a period of mourning lasting until Monday after nine people were killed in a Russian drone attack – which occurred just hours after Kyiv and Moscow held peace talks.
Seven others were injured, Ukrainian authorities said. The bus was evacuating civilians from a frontline area when the drone hit, the country’s national police said.
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0:41
Nine killed in Russian strike on bus
A “father, mother and daughter” were among the dead, Mr Zelenskyy said, writing on Telegram: “All the deceased were civilians. And the Russians could not have failed to understand what kind of vehicle they were targeting.”
The attack has also been condemned by British Foreign Secretary David Lammy, who said he was “appalled”.
“If Putin is serious about peace, Russia must agree to a full and immediate ceasefire, as Ukraine has done,” he wrote on X.
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While the discussions – which were not attended by the Mr Putin or Mr Zelenskyy – did not result in a truce, both countries agreed to exchange 1,000 prisoners in their biggest swap yet.
Ukraine’s intelligence chief, Kyrylo Budanov, said on national television the exchange could happen as early as next week.
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1:52
What happened at Ukraine talks?
Russia ‘threatened eternal war’ at peace talks
After a Ukrainian official yesterday said Russia made “unacceptable” demands during the discussions, a source from the Kyiv delegation has now told Sky News that Moscow threatened “eternal war”.
Separately, a senior Kyiv official said Russia’s proposed ceasefire terms included the full withdrawal of troops from four regions of Ukraine: Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson and Luhansk.
Moscow also called for international recognition that those regions and Crimea – annexed in 2014 – are Russian and for Ukraine to become a neutral state, with no allied troops stationed there, they said.
Ukraine has rallied support from its allies following the talks, and a number have spoken out.
French President Emmanuel Macron said: “Today, what do we have? Nothing. And so I tell you, faced with President Putin’s cynicism, I am sure that President Trump, mindful of the credibility of the United States, will react.”
The EU is working on a new package of sanctions against Moscow, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said.
On Sunday, President Trump called on leaders of both Russia and Ukraine to meet.
He posted: “President Putin of Russia wants to meet on Thursday, in Turkey, to negotiate a possible end to the BLOODBATH. Ukraine should agree to this, IMMEDIATELY.”
That post let the Russian leader off the hook. Only the day before, Putin had been ordered by Ukraine’s allies, including America, to agree to a 30-day unconditional ceasefire.
Image: Pic: AP
The Russian president had swerved that demand, suggesting talks instead.
“If the ceasefire is not respected, the US and its partners will impose further sanctions,” Trump posted before swivelling and backing Putin’s proposals for talks instead.
Undeterred, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accepted the call.
Putin though refused to go, sending officials instead.
And yet there was no reprimand from the US president. Instead, he chose to undermine the talks he had himself called for.
“Look, nothing is going to happen until Putin and I get together,” he told reporters on Air Force One. So much for that then.
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1:52
What happened at Ukraine talks?
It is what happened in those talks though that should give the US president the greatest pause for thought about Putin’s intentions – as it does in Kyiv.
The message they brought was blunt and belligerent, threatening eternal war.
“We don’t want war, but we’re ready to fight for a year, two, three – however long it takes,” lead Russian negotiator Vladimir Medinsky is reported to have said. “We fought Sweden for 21 years. How long are you ready to fight?”
Image: Russian negotiator Vladimir Medinsky. Pic: AP
Far from offering a compromise, they are reported to have demanded the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the four regions they have partially seized by force and the capitulation of another two, just for good measure.
And there was a chilling moment when the Russians are reported to have threatened their interlocutors like gangsters.
“Maybe some of those sitting here at this table will lose more of their loved ones,” Mednisky said. Russia is prepared to fight forever.
For Sergiy Kyslytsya, Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister, that was personal.
Max, his 23-year-old nephew, lost his life fighting the Russians in 2022 not long after their illegal and unprovoked invasion began.
Image: Sergiy Kyslytsya, Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister. Pic: AP
At the end of this week, Putin appears scornful of Western efforts to end this war through a ceasefire and negotiations and Trump seems happy to let him get away with it.
Even Fox News, normally slavishly subservient to Trump, is wondering what gives.
Its anchor Bret Baier is no Jeremy Paxman, but in an interview last night asked Donald Trump 10 times if he might finally now put pressure on Putin.
The US president ducked and dived, talking about the money he had made in his Gulf tour, Zelenskyy’s shortcomings, Biden, and Iran instead. But he did not give a straight answer to the question.
With performances like that, Putin has nothing to worry about. Trump’s position though seems increasingly untenable.
Ukraine’s European allies though should be alarmed. They threatened Russia with sanctions and retaliation last weekend if he rejected a ceasefire. He now has.
With or without America, will they be good to their word?