Frontline report: Russian military suffers devastating losses in Tolstyi Lug, Kursk Oblast

Day 1013

On 2 December, there are a lot of updates from the Kursk direction.

Here, in a desperate attempt to penetrate the Ukrainian salient from the west, the Russians have committed their entire arsenal of armored vehicles to the battle. However, the devastating losses inflicted by Ukraine’s layered defenses seem to have exhausted their reserves of armor in Kursk, leaving them with no options other than to resort to pure infantry assaults on foot with even more catastrophic outcomes.

The main Russian goal here is to create a foothold on the east side of the Snagost River, capture the settlements along the bank, and collapse the Ukrainian defense to cut off supplies to Ukrainian forces to the north. All Russian attacks to this moment have failed due to the natural barrier in the form of the river and the strong Ukrainian positions on elevated points on the other side.

This has prompted the Russians to change their approach and throw all their efforts to break through from the north around Tolstyi Lug. If they establish a firm presence in the area, they will achieve not only their main goal but will also be able to increase the direct attacks against Novoivanovka to the east where they have failed miserably in the previous weeks.

The initial Russian assault involved several armored personnel carriers attempting to bypass a large local water reservoir and advance southward. However, the repeated use of this route in prior attacks on Novoivanovka had led Ukrainian forces to maintain constant surveillance of the area with drones equipped with thermal imaging.

Once the Russian vehicles were detected, Ukrainian forces swiftly engaged them with Javelin anti-tank missiles, obliterating the convoy on the spot. The surviving troops sought refuge in the tree line near the water but were quickly neutralized by precision strikes from FPV drones.

This initial Russian attempt aimed at locating the Ukrainian fire positions and checking how quickly they would respond. It was immediately followed by several large waves of at least 6 to 10 armored vehicles each, including several types of tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, and larger numbers of infantry.

The main Russian idea was to overwhelm the defenders and penetrate their line with brute force, prompting them to retreat further east.

The Ukrainians had anticipated such moves and extensively mined large sections of the surrounding fields. This forced the attackers to attempt a breakthrough along their former defensive positions, originally designed to protect the international border.

Geolocated footage revealed the dire consequences: some Russian vehicles became immobilized on anti-tank dragon’s teeth, making them easy targets for Ukrainian forces, while others were caught in the open and swiftly destroyed by a combination of Javelin missiles, artillery strikes, and FPV drone attacks. Wave after wave of Russian mechanized assaults ended in flames, with soldiers of the Ukrainian 225th Assault Battalion and the 36th Marine Brigade publishing several videos highlighting the devastating results of the two-day-long Russian operation.

The images show fields cluttered with burning remnants of Russian tanks and armored vehicles, scattered along a vast area between Tolstyi Lug, Zelenyi Shlyakh, and Nizhnii Klin, turning it into a graveyard of tanks and other armored vehicles. One Ukrainian fighter from the 24th Assault Battalion confirmed that Russians switched to pure infantry assaults now, which indicates that the Russian units lost so much armor so quickly that they ran out of reserves in the warehouses in Kursk.

Overall, the relentless Russian attempts to break through the Ukrainian defenses around Tolstyi Lug have resulted in catastrophic losses, both in personnel and equipment. Despite shifting tactics and exhausting resources, they have been unable to overcome the well-prepared Ukrainian positions, underscoring the ineffectiveness of their campaign in this region despite Putin’s orders and deadlines.

In our daily frontline report, we pair up with the military blogger Reporting from Ukraine to keep you informed about what is happening on the battlefield in the Russo-Ukrainian war.

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