Exclusive: Documents contain months of warnings about possible Ukrainian advance and also reveal concerns about morale
Russia’s military command had 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.
The disclosure makes the disarray among Russian forces after Ukraine’s attack in early August 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 due to his service in the Russian army”.
Unit commanders are given instructions to ensure soldiers consume Russian state media daily to maintain their “psychological condition”.
They would’ve been even more incompetent than usual to not expect some kind of border incursion. The FRL probing their defenses every couple of weeks should’ve been indication enough that it was a possibility. Still, it’s pretty baffling that they were unprepared enough to lose such a large area that they could’ve fortified for over two years.