ESCAPE STORY ⟩ How Ukrainian Soldiers Managed to Evade the Siege in the Kursk Region: Three Days Without Food or Water in the Forests

"I can't imagine how we managed it, but we retreated on foot through the woods from the village, and we had only about ten wounded—nobody was killed. We outsmarted them," Bit recounted.

They then divided into smaller groups of six to ten men and retreated toward the larger settlement of Snagosti, navigating through forests and swamps, and crossing streams and rivers.

"We were repeatedly in combat contact, constantly under attack from FPV drones as well. We didn't let it bother us; we just kept moving," recounted Shnur, who was with Bit in the same group. "At one point, we encountered some BTRs (Russian armored personnel carriers). They seemed unaware of our situation and didn’t engage us. Ultimately, we were incredibly lucky that none of us sustained serious injuries."

After three days of grueling travel, Bit and Shnur's group reached their own lines in Lyubimovka, having covered a distance of 30 to 35 kilometers on foot.

All the groups made it back except for one. A larger group of over ten men took a slightly different route and has since gone missing; their fate remains unknown. They are considered to be missing in action.

"The last of our men reached us five days later," Bit said. "He had been left behind and was constantly encountering the enemy. There was one day when he could only move 300 meters at a time, sneaking through the night."

The soldiers had no food with them, and everyone had only one plastic bottle of drinking water. The plan was to travel just five or six kilometers to Snagosti, but upon arrival, they discovered that Russian units were already present there. They had to press on through the woods.

"We ran out of drinking water. The soldiers drank directly from the river alongside the cows," Bit recounted. "Everyone was indifferent to whether they would get sick or not."

They had to sleep under thermal blankets, but the nights were already cold. "You could manage a maximum of one hour of sleep at night. You'd sleep for 15 minutes and then wake up shivering," Shnur recounted.

While fleeing through forests and swamps, most of the men discarded their gear, as no one could carry 30 kilograms on their backs. Body armor and backpacks were the first to be thrown into the woods. The oldest member of Bit and Shnur's group, a 55-year-old man, said he kept only his submachine gun and magazines with ammunition from all his equipment; otherwise, he simply wouldn’t have been able to make it out, he stated.

"When we finally reached our own, the guys took off their socks along with the skin," Bit recalled.

"Morally, many of the men are still deeply affected by that harrowing retreat," Shnur said. "I honestly admit that it still weighs on me, especially the fact that one of our groups went missing."

Shnur mentioned that he specifically received two days of rest after the exhausting escape. On the third day, he had to return to the front lines.

Both Bit and Shnur joined the Ukrainian army only this year. The battles in the Kursk region marked their first significant combat experience. Shnur enlisted in January, while Bit joined in March.

As of today, the 103rd Territorial Defense Brigade has nearly been withdrawn from the Kursk region. As of last week, only one of their battalions was still operating in Russia, said Colonel Evgeny Goncharov (57), the brigade’s deputy commander.

The Kursk operation primarily involved Ukrainian army airborne units and mechanized brigades equipped with Western armored vehicles. The only territorial defense brigade was likely included because they were already present in the area, having defended the Ukrainian border in the Sumy region since April. Typically, they don’t even have armored vehicles, but this time they were supplemented with American MaxxPro and M113 armored personnel carriers.

Goncharov is an experienced combat officer. As a battalion commander, he defended the now-famous village of Peski near Donetsk airport in 2022. He personally led his battalion out of a near encirclement during a situation where his men were running low on ammunition. During the breakout, he sustained serious injuries and spent six months in the hospital.

Here are his thoughts on the Ukrainian operation in Russia's Kursk region, recorded a week ago:

- 'We moved 17 kilometers deep into enemy territory in just 5 to 6 days.'

- 'We faced a formidable opponent, the 155th Naval Infantry Brigade. No one among them gave up or fled; they held their ground as long as they could.'

- 'We also didn’t have the mission to take prisoners. We blocked their support points and moved forward. The units that followed us were responsible for the 'mopping up.'

- 'The support points were very well fortified; everything was concrete, with many pathways between positions. Absolutely everything was reinforced. There were strongholds that took weeks to capture.'

- 'The Russian army simply did not anticipate our offensive. It came as a complete surprise.'

- 'We were unfamiliar with the local terrain, which certainly diminished the element of surprise.'

- 'Most of our equipment was destroyed by the Russian army at the outset of our advance through FPV drones. They were very effective in that regard.'

- 'When the Russian army launched its first serious counteroffensive in September, we had to retreat because they simply overwhelmed us. They continuously attacked in small infantry groups of 5 to 7 men, and eventually even in pairs, but these groups came in an endless stream.'

- 'In September, the infantry assaults lasted for weeks on end, 24 hours a day. It was two hours of attack, then the next wave, and so on, constantly. They came in company after company. One battalion would be shattered, and then the next battalion would take its place. We were ultimately worn down.

When I asked Colonel Goncharov, an experienced Ukrainian officer, about what might happen next in the Kursk direction and what the prospects for the Ukrainian army were there, he hesitated at first to respond. He thought for a long time. Finally, he replied, 'I don’t want to know [what happens next]. I sincerely hope that someone knows exactly what the goal of this operation is.''