The fighting may be the most fight in the Ukraine war in Russia

The commander of the Russian Special Forces served in four fighting facades throughout eastern Ukraine after joining Russia’s invasion nearly three years ago. He said that the most fierce fighting that he watched now is revealed at home, as the Russian army serves conflicts to liberate a segment of national lands from the Ukrainian forces.

The lengthy battle of the occupied Russian city and the surrounding countryside appeared unexpectedly as one of the pivotal points in the war that fought the fate of the Ukrainian state. Both sides have committed a large share of their limited reserves to control Sudzha, a Nais Province seat in the Kursk region, near the borders of the two countries.

“These are the most brutal battles – I have not seen anything like this during the entire military operation,” said the leader, who leads about 200 men fighting in Corsak, in an interview near the confrontation line late last year. Carmlin’s expression of war. He asked to get to know him only through the sign of his call, Hades, according to the military protocol.

Both sides see Kursk as a necessary land, which is an important element in the expected Peace talks that President Trump promised. Military analysts say that the Ukrainian forces have since poured some of their best reserves in Korsk, hoping to use their invasion as a bargaining incentive in negotiations.

For President Vladimir F. Putin from Russia, the Ukrainian incursion – was the first invasion of Russian territory since World War II – has been a continuous embarrassment. He is determined to push Ukraine abroad, so he does not have to provide any privilege to restore the region, and Moscow has published tens of thousands SoldiersIncluding North Korean recruits and allies, to repel the invaders, according to American officials.

Ukrainians “wanted talks on the position of force,” Lieutenant General Abti Aldinov, Commander of the Special Forces Unit in Akhtat Chechnya region in RussiaHe said in an interview in the Corsak area in December. “When the time comes for conversations, it is not clear whether they can say they are here.”

With high risks, Russian soldiers in Corsak believe that fighting is about to become more bloody.

“We expect Bakhmut 2.0”.

Bakhmut is a Ukrainian city with ruins Wagner was arrested in 2023 after a nine -month attack At the expense of tens of thousands of losses. The confrontation was a symbol of Ukraine’s stand -alone strategy, even in the face of the workforce and the superficial power in Russia.

Another Russian leader, who insisted on not being identified for security reasons, said that the cost of the confrontation will be amazing. He said that bloodshed, losses, it “cannot be conceived.”

A photographer working for the New York Times was granted access to Corsak late last year, and he was allowed to meet and photograph Russian soldiers in the hospital and near.

Some of the soldiers who were interviewed were ancient warriors who joined the luxuries after the failed rebellion of the mercenary leader, Yevgeny V. Prigzhin. They said that the Chechen Special Forces Unit is very similar to the loose structure of its previous paramilitary power.

The other soldiers who were interviewed by modern volunteers joined the increasing registration bonuses. They said that the opportunity to fight inside their country has provided an additional incentive to join a war of targets or wider reasons, struggling to express.

“This is our land, this is our people and our values.” “We must fight for them.”

Since the Ukrainian invasion began six months ago, both sides have been heavy losses in the flat terrain in Corsak, although the armies are closely guarded. Injuries. Russia managed, with ice progress, to recover about 60 percent of about 500 square miles at first by Ukraine.

Between the two armies between 2000 to 3,000 Russian civilians, they are trapped quickly the first Ukrainian progress and the Russian government’s failure to evacuate.

The two sides blamed each other for their failure to provide conditions for the remaining residents to leave, forcing these civilians to bear the Russian winter with dreadful food supplies and without running water, heating or electricity. With the approaching Russian forces, they are exposed to the escalating shelling.

Analysts and relatives of Sudzha’s residents fear that the Russian army depends on heavy bombing and Ukraine’s determination to defend the city that threatens a humanitarian catastrophe at an unprecedented level in Russia since the Civil War in Chechnya in the 1990s. By late January, Russian forces stood a few miles from the city center.

In Ukraine, the Russian invasion caused a much broader civilian suffering, with strikes in residential buildings, hospitals, churches and a group of energy facilities.

The Russian attack on Sudzha will be costly for both soldiers and civilians, because Ukraine was published in your Curske’s strongest force.

Liopov, a four -year -old mother, is part of a group of Korsk residents who were for several months calling for a humanitarian corridor to evacuate their relatives trapped in Soda. She said that she is afraid that the attack on the city will leave her parents and others there is a little opportunity to survive.

She said in an interview: “By the time the Russian forces interfered in the settlements, the rubble and ashes remain only in homes,” adding: “This is a terrible rescue system.”

The horrific scenes described by the civilians who fled from the villages of Soudha surrounding the intensity of the city’s imminent battle.

In the interviews, these civilians presented mixed accounts of the Ukrainian occupation.

Zoya, 64, described the initial friendliness of the Ukrainian soldiers who occupied her village, Bougrebki, on August 12. She said that the first soldiers who came to her home gave her husband a group of cigarettes and offered their help.

She said, “They were really kind boys.”

(Zola and other civilians who were interviewed with their first names are identified only to protect them from the laws of Russian censorship).

This friendship diminishes the condensation of the fighting, according to those who fled. Ukrainian soldiers began to see Russian civilians obstacle – or what is worse, as potential experts who can give up their positions.

Zoya and her husband ran out of food and clashed at the frozen potatoes sometimes who left their garden. During one of these wounds, a drone exploded near her husband. She died in her arms minutes, she said.

Zoya spent most of the time sheltering her from the constant bombing of her lower floor, an extension of the darkness that made her hallucinations and lost her sense of sight and time temporarily. Hunger eventually led her to try to escape.

“There was no place to live – it was very scary, and everything was destroyed,” she said in an interview.

She said she walked five miles across the destroyed Russian tanks and dead soldiers before reaching Russian positions in November.

Another woman named Natalia, 69, who uses a wheelchair, narrated a similar experience.

She said that the Ukrainian soldiers initially brought her bread, water and insulin for her diabetes after the occupation of the village of Novivanovka. The soldiers stopped from time to time to chat on a cup of tea.

The treatment worsened with the approaching fighting.

She said in an interview that her husband died after being shot by a Ukrainian soldier. Its account cannot be independently verified and that Ukraine has repeatedly said that it adheres to the human laws in Kursk.

By November, Natalia was protected on the basement of any man. One day, a Russian reconnaissance group arrived at her home and told her that her only chance to stay was to escape.

“They said, please leave, but you can – otherwise you will die,” Natalia said.

She said that the other residents surviving helped to move it to another village, where their group was eventually rescued by the Russian forces.

Sudzha residents now fear similar difficulties coming to their trapped relatives.

Earlier in February, an internal school missile hit her in Soudha, which protected about 100 people who were displaced from remote villages. Both sides blame each other for the strike. Ukraine has issued evidence that it appears to show that Russia was responsible.

The attack was killed at least four people; Ukrainian soldiers evacuated the survivors to Ukraine.

Yulia, a Russian woman, said her parents from where the missile came from, “she said.

A Russian man named Sergey said that the video from the city’s family has sometimes reached him after its occupation. He said that over the months, he saw his hair growing white, and their bodies grow and the sounds of explosions with a louder voice.

“I am sorry because I was crying,” said his sister in a video that the Times saw, and he congratulated Serji on his birthday. “I wish I had done it personally, at least over the phone. I have always complained that I was calling very a little.”

“The mother cannot congratulate you, because she is struggling to go out on the stairs. She is always on the basement.” “It joins our congratulations.”

Sergey said the videos have become very painful to watch.

continuous and Yurii Syvala It contributed to the reports from Kyiv and Milana Mazeva From Tbilisi, Georgia.