War update: gas pipes and slag heaps

Breakthrough in Kursk via gas pipe. The grey-zone death-zone in the Toretsk slagheap. Ukraine throwing precious reserves to the east.

Today I’ll be covering the dramatic recent events at the frontline. Among our topics:

• Kursk region: How Russian troops crawled over 10 kilometers through a gas pipe to surprise Ukrainian forces in the rear

• Ukrainian takes on the collapse of their Kursk salient. Many open calls to retreat from this ‘joke that has dragged on too long’

• Donbass - what’s causing the slowdown in Russian advances? Three explanations. Confirmed by both Russian and Ukrainian military telegrams - Ukraine has thrown its precious reserves to the eastern front to demonstrate to the US that it isn’t doing as badly as it seems. Speculations on the political roots of this tactic. As usual, a risky gamble with dubious results even in the present

• A closer look at bloody house-to-house battles in Toretsk. Another showdown over control of the slagheap. Ukrainian analysts make fun of the Institute for the Study of War for its over-estimation of Ukrainian advances. A personal story of injuries and near-death experiences in Toretsk.

• How talk of negotiations is affecting frontline morale

First, a musical note.

Remember my article about Nord Division, the Azov rap group with lyrics like:

Doctor Mengele, this is still like a concentration camp.

Yes, I’ve seen the future, and we didn’t lose there.

Nord Division is like blowing up the Kursk submarine.

Historical note: a lot of Russians died there.

Don't preach peace, but preach only violence.

To the borders of '91, death is what we must reach.

This landing is doomed, I have already died for Ukraine.

…

You bastards will pay in blood.

Enemies of common sense and the white race.

A white key is on my shoulder.

Stand when the lieutenant speaks to you.

Lie on the floor when the RDK [Russian Volunteer Corps, Ukraine-created group of Russian neo-nazis] comes in.

A Sig Heil to everyone, and goodbye.

….

We also want to reclaim our native land.

The gas van is coming, climb in, Vazgen.

Now we’re going to clean the streets in Moscow.

We will leave our mark, in the dark we are the light.

For Holy Rus', we’ll crush all of you now.

It turns out this group has fans in high places. On March 1, head of the army Oleksandr Syrsky proudly called them his favorite rap group in an interview. According to him, ‘they are very relevant’:

Now back to reality.

After losing around half of what it originally took back in August of last year, Ukraine’s Kursk salient is now collapsing. It turns out that the early Ukrainian military fears I covered here about Zelensky’s ‘genius ploy’ were true.

Meanwhile, Ukraine has been unsustainably reinforcing the Donbass front with fresh reserves. But the results have been uncertain. While the aim has clearly been to demonstrate to the US that not all is as bad as it seems in the east, it has only led to some minor counter-attacks around Toretsk and Pokrovsk. These battles for slagheaps, too, have been reversed in recent days.

Time to get stuck into more detailed reports from our frontline telegram warriors.

First off, the front as a whole. Here’s a handy graph that Ukraine’s ‘DeepState’ thinktank came up with. It shows the number of Russian offensive actions in the first 7 days of March compared to the last 7 days of February. Thanks to microsoft paint, I managed to translate the graph. The DeepState commentary is below:

Comparing March 1–7 to February 22–28, the number of assaults has nearly doubled in the Lyman, Kursk, Kramatorsk, and Toretsk sectors.

📉 Meanwhile, activity in the Pokrovsk sector has dropped by 33%, and in the Novopavlivka sector, it has nearly halved.

⚔️ The Kursk direction has now taken the lead, surpassing Pokrovsk. Close attention should be paid to Lyman and Toretsk, as well as to the Orikhiv sector, where the enemy is applying intensified fire pressure near one of the villages in preparation for further actions.

Here’s a March 10 DeepState map of the entire frontline with all the above locations circled and labelled. By the way, I’m unsure as to why DeepState forgot to include the Velyka Novosylka front, which is located between Orikhiv and Pokrovsk. According to Ukrainian war telegrams, it has been one of the most active areas in recent weeks.

The Kursk collapse

The euphoria was high back when Ukraine seized a piece of Russia’s Kursk region back in August 2024. Now it’s all coming tumbling down. At its height last year, Ukraine controlled over 800 square kilometers in Kursk. By December - 500km. January - 420km. This didn’t change much in February, until the end of the month.

First, DeepState shows the AFU lost a large chunk of land between Sverdlikovo and Zhuravka on February 29, which is to the west of the Kursk salient.

Next, significant portions of the northeastern and northwestern portions of the salient were bitten off on the 4th of March. DeepState claimed Ukraine regained some of this northeastern territory on the 5th, but on the 6th Russian forces took another chomp out of the southeastern region of the salient. The deepstate maps below show the difference between March 3 and March 6:

This southeastern advance took an unexpected turn on the 8th, when the Russian army drove a massive line through almost the southern section of the Kursk salient. Here is how the USAID-funded (until recently) Ukrainska Pravda described it on March 9:

According to Ukrainska Pravda, on the morning of March 8, Russian forces used a gas pipeline to infiltrate the Ukrainian rear. Around 100 enemy soldiers moved along the pipeline to reach Defense Forces' positions.

Sources within the Kursk military grouping stated that this was not unexpected, as Russian forces had been preparing the operation for several days, clearing the area with KAB bombs before advancing.

When asked why the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) did not destroy the pipeline in advance, a source from Ukrainska Pravda noted that it was impossible due to logistical constraints. The pipeline in question is likely the Urengoy-Pomary-Uzhhorod pipeline, which previously transported Russian gas to Europe until January 1 of this year.

Russian military telegram ‘war observer’ described the gas pipe operation in a March 9 post:

Footage from the very same pipeline that was used (link) to infiltrate enemy positions near Sudzha.

It appears that the maneuver was carried out by the Airborne Assault Brigade "Veterans" (ODSHBR), similar to the breakthrough via a pipeline near Avdiivka (link) and other units.

The Russian soldiers involved were certainly hardy. ‘Markov’s Logic’, a Russian analyst, has this to say about their feat:

Around 100 Russian soldiers traveled 15 km through a 1.4m-diameter pipeline, emerging behind the northern group of UAF forces and striking them from the rear.

Some died inside the pipeline due to methane residue, while others were killed upon exiting, coming under fire. However, the main objective was achieved—they hit UAF positions from the rear, leading to the collapse of the entire northern section of Ukraine’s defense in the Kursk region.

To release methane from the pipeline, they cut holes in it and even detonated sections.

The soldiers traveled for two days and then spent four days in an ambush, waiting for the right moment to strike.

Here’s how the Russian military telegram Yury Baranchik described the situation on March 10 for the remaining Ukrainian troops in Sudzha, the largest city in Kursk under Ukrainian control: