Ukrainian troops left a brutally mocking message for Vladimir Putin’s army in the captured town of Sudzha.
The town was the first major settlement in Russia to fall under Ukrainian control, after Kyiv’s troops launched a surprise incursion into Russian territory on August 6.
In a lightning attack, Ukraine’s army smashed through Russian defences and made rapid gains. Kyiv now claims to control 100 Russian settlements and more than 500 square miles of territory.
A military administration has been set up to govern the captured territories, as Ukraine looks to consolidate its gains.
It would appear though that Ukrainian soldiers could not resist taunting their enemy after their humiliating retreat.
In large white letters, someone had written on the main square: “Russians, learn how to fight. Your conscripts are rotting in forests”, according to The Sun.
The town had been defended by a mixture of border guards, conscripts, and Chechens from the Akhmat battalion.
The Russian soldiers reportedly abandoned their positions and made a hasty retreat as they came under attack.
Ukraine’s attack on the Kursk region appears to be delivering some significant military results, with the Kremlin reported to be moving its aircraft back from airfields near the Ukrainian border.
At the same time, the number of glide bomb attacks, which have caused havoc on Ukraine’s frontlines, are said to have decreased over the past month.
An unnamed White House official told Politico that “90 percent of the planes that launch glide bombs” against Ukrainian frontline positions had been moved back inside Russia.
Ukrainian Colonel Vitaly Sarantsev told a joint news telethon broadcast that the Kursk offensive had greatly reduced Russia’s use of aviation against northeastern Ukraine.
He said last weekend: “We felt relief in tactical aviation. The enemy has significantly reduced its use in our direction.
“If in previous periods we had 30 to 50 antiaircraft missiles per day only [in the Sumy region], then yesterday the enemy used air strikes twice, using four antiaircraft and 11 unguided air missiles.”
