MOSCOW, March 12. /TASS/. The president of the Association of Veterans of the Alpha Anti-Terror Squad, Sergey Goncharov, has told TASS that the infiltration of Russian assault troops into Sudzha through an unused gas pipeline was unique in many respects.
"It took the guys several days to crawl through the 15-kilometer-long pipe. I am not a chemist, but I can well imagine that there are residual gases present. All these men undertook this mission at great risk to their health, yet they succeeded. This operation is now being studied by special services around the world because it is truly exceptional," he stated.
Goncharov compared Operation Pipeline to the 1979 assault on Amin's palace in Afghanistan, during which Soviet special forces faced significantly greater numbers of enemy fighters. That assault concluded with a Soviet victory.
"This operation in Sudzha once again demonstrates that we possess not only military strength but also a significant advantage in the morale of our soldiers who are fighting there now," the Alpha group’s veteran added.
Meanwhile, the Russian army continues to eliminate the Ukrainian incursion into the Kursk Region. The Defense Ministry reported on March 11 that the battle group North's recent offensive operations liberated 12 settlements: Agronom, Bogdanovka, Bondarevka, Dmitriukov, Zazulevka, Ivashkovsky, Kolmakov, Kubatkin, Martynovka, Mikhailovka, Pravda, Yuzhny, and more than 100 square kilometers of territory in the Kursk Region.