Ukrainian commando infantry defeated and wiped-out elements of three Russian combat brigades leading the incursion into Ukraine’s Sumy region – killing or wounding hundreds of enemy and capturing prisoners, news and combat reports from both pro-Kremlin and pro-Kyiv sources said on Monday.
The two-week long battle contrasted sharply with the recent trend of relentless Russian advances ending with Moscow’s motor rifle and elite marine units surrounded and pounded for days by Ukrainian FPV drones, howitzers, and rocket artillery.
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Official Ukrainian sources, mainstream media, independent OSINT researchers, combat reports from Ukrainian units and Russian social media comment reviewed by Kyiv Post all confirmed a Ukrainian victory that eliminated an estimated 700 Russian troops and their equipment on the border region.
The Ukrainian success on a relatively narrow sector facing a major Russian summer offensive that was making slow, bloody but relentless progress on other parts of the 1,500-kilometer (940-mile) long front line, particularly in some sectors of the eastern Donetsk region.
Reports of a significant Ukrainian victory near the village Kindrativka, about four kilometers (2.5 miles) from Russia’s western Kursk region, first surfaced in Ukrainian media on Friday. Official confirmation came on Sunday and Ukraine’s 225th regiment published video on Monday of what was claimed to show its infantry walking inside the village, and dead Russian soldiers.
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Multiple but un confirmed reports by OSINT platforms and other Ukrainian units operating in that sector on Monday said Kyiv’s forces also had captured the adjacent village Andriivka, about three kilometers (1.9 miles) to the east, although heavy fighting was still reportedly in progress around Andriivka on Monday.
Milbloggers from both sides named Russia’s 30th and 40th Motorized Rifle Regiments along with the elite 155th Naval Infantry Brigade as the units that had been defeated.
The Azerbaijan-based military analyst Agil Rustamzade account of the action on Sunday said that Ukrainian forces waited for poor weather before launcheing initial attacks on Jul 11-12, successfully breaking through Russian lines near Kindrativka.
A second tactical infiltration assault took place one or two days later allowing Ukrainian lines to advance up four kilometers (2.5 miles) effectively isolated hundreds of Russian soldiers defending positions in and around the village in a pincer movement, Rustamzade wrote.
Russian counterattacks attempting to restore communications to their trapped forces were in progress by July 17-18 but failed to break through in the face of heavy Ukrainian artillery fire supported by FPV and bomber drone swarms.
For the next week Ukrainian ground forces pressed trapped Russian troops into a shrinking perimeter while bombarding it and hunting down exposed troops with drones. Russian resistance had effectively collapsed by Thursday with Kyiv’s infantry overrunning the last Russian positions in Kindrativka on Friday, Ukrainian reports said.
Russian mil-bloggers and social media purportedly describing the situation inside the isolated Russian perimeter told of shrinking reserves of ammunition, medical supplies, food and water.
A single full-strength Russian brigade or regiment numbers – on paper – around 2,000 men. Previous losses meant the total strength of the elements surrounded by the Ukrainians were only between 300 and 840, Rustamzade said. Ukrainian mil-bloggers put the number of Russian troops killed, wounded or taken prisoner at 700-1,000 men. Sources on both sides said the units that had been trapped in Kindrativka had been wiped out.
An information feed operated by the 225th Regiment’s 1st “Black Swan” Assault Battalion claimed that, in the fighting, the commander of Russia’s 30th Brigade was killed, although with no outside confirmation.
A widely shared but unconfirmed post purportedly written by the mother of a soldier in the 30th Motor Rifle Regiment said: “My son died near Kindrativka on July 18. They were simply sent to their deaths. From 40 men in the unit, two survived. This is thr 40th Brigade. All of them were taken out by drones. They had only just arrived from basic training, they had no [combat] experience at all.”
Kyiv Post could not confirm the woman’s post, but both Russian and Ukrainian reports told of omnipresent FPV drone swarms leaving Moscow’s soldiers few places to hide during the latter stages of the fighting.
According to Rustamzade, many Russian soldiers died of wounds because there was no way to evacuate them. Some Ukrainian battle reports claimed prisoners of war were captured – but by Monday visual or official confirmation of Russian troops being captured had not reached the public domain.
If the details of these battles prove accurate, the victory is the Armed Forces of Ukraine’s (AFU) most substantial ground force success since June 2024, when its forces drove dozens of kilometers into Russia’s Kursk region against initially weak and sometimes panicked opposition.
Russian milbloggers identified Ukraine’s 158th Motorized Brigade, 17th Heavy Mechanized Brigade and 78th Assault Brigade in support of assaults by the 225th Regiment’s latest offensive.
If details of the involvement of these Ukrainian units are confirmed, the size of forces deployed in the Kindrativka-Andriivka battles represent the largest-scale Ukrainian ground offensive operation, since early 2025.
The commander of the 225th Regiment, Colonel Oleh Shiryaev, in an interview with Ukrainian military journalist Yury Butusov in April said that his unit’s training focuses on classic infantry skills such as marksmanship, fieldcraft, close-in assaults, first aid and endurance, as well as modern techniques like concealment from drones and internet cleanliness.
In contrast with most Ukrainian army formations, mobile phones are banned in the 225th Regiment, which improves unit cohesion by forcing soldiers to talk among themselves, Shiryaev said.