NEW YORK, March 22. /TASS/. Operation Pipeline, which Russia carried out in the Kursk Region, with troops creeping through a gas pipeline deep into enemy defenses, triggered panic among Ukrainian forces, the Wall Street Journal writes.
Despite official statements about the situation being under control, Ukrainian Senior Sergeant Zenon Dashak and other soldiers reported panic among Ukrainian forces.
According to Dashak, the situation had already been critical when he and his fellow soldiers heard that Russian forces had broken through Ukrainian lines. Some Ukrainian commanders told their men to withdraw before receiving orders from senior officers.
Operation Pipeline involved a joint assault unit comprising soldiers from the 11th Separate Guards Air Assault Brigade, the 30th Regiment of the 72nd Motorized Rifle Division, the Akhmat special forces unit, and volunteers from the Veterans and Vostok V assault brigades. The troops moved stealthily through a gas pipeline, about 15 kilometers, and emerged deep within Ukrainian defenses near the town of Sudzha, catching enemy forces off guard.
On March 12, Army General Valery Gerasimov, chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces and first deputy defense minister, stated that over 600 soldiers participated in the operation, with the Veterans and Akhmat units, along with the 11th Air Assault Brigade and the 30th Motorized Rifle Regiment, standing out. Gerasimov commended "the heroic actions of the combined assault unit," which startled the enemy, caused them to abandon their defenses, and thereby aided the Russian army’s progress in the Kursk Region.