Russian military predicted Kursk incursion, seized papers show

Russia's military command anticipated Ukraine's incursion into its Kursk region and had been making plans to prevent it for several months, according to a cache of documents that the Ukrainian army said it had seized from abandoned Russian positions in the region.

- Shaun Walker, Pjotr Sauer

The disclosure makes the disarray among Russian forces after Ukraine's attack early last month all the more embarrassing. The documents, shared with the Guardian, also reveal Russian concerns about morale in the ranks in Kursk, which intensified after the suicide of a soldier at the front who had reportedly been in a "prolonged state of depression owing to his service in the Russian army".

Unit commanders are given instructions to ensure soldiers consume Russian state media daily in order to maintain their "psychological condition".

The Guardian could not independently verify the authenticity of the documents, though they bear the hallmarks of genuine Russian army communications. Late last month Guardian reporters met the Ukrainian special operations team who seized the cache, hours after they had left Russian territory.

The team said they had taken Russian interior ministry, Federal Security Service (FSB) and army documents from buildings in the Kursk region and later provided a selection to view and photograph. Some of the documents are printed orders distributed to various units, while others are handwritten logs recording events and concerns at specific positions.

The earliest entries are dated late in 2023, while the most recent documents are from six weeks before Ukraine launched its incursion into the region on 6 August. The documents mostly come from units of Russia's 488th Guards Motorised Rifle Regiment, and in particular the second company of its 17th Battalion.