Below Senior Fellow Can Kasapoğlu offers a military situation report about the war in Ukraine.
Executive Summary
• The Russian military targeted Ukraine’s Sumy Oblast with heavy air strikes.
• The Ukrainian Armed Forces struck the Engels air base, a facility deep inside Russia that hosts strategic bombers.
• While Ukrainian formations have largely withdrawn from the Russian region of Kursk, the Ukrainian high command has launched a limited incursion into the Russian city of Belgorod.
1. North Korea and Russia Launch a Large-Scale Offensive in Kursk
Tactical engagements sprang up across multiple flashpoints last week. Eastern Ukraine continued to see fierce fighting as Ukrainian efforts to stabilize the front faced mounting Russian offensives. Each belligerent made incremental gains in various axes across the line of contact, including in Pokrovsk and Toretsk.
Russian offensives in Kupiansk and Lyman also generated heavy combat. On the front near Chasiv Yar, the Ukrainian military fought to forestall further Russian territorial gains. Meanwhile, resupplied Russian forces mounted a push in southern Ukraine.
The Ukrainian General Staff reported that the Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS) has heightened the frequency of aerial glide bomb and drone strikes. The VKS also continued to increase its use of Shahed loitering munitions. These drone salvos targeted wide swaths of Ukraine, including Kyiv, Dnipropetrovsk, and Odesa.
On March 24 Russian missiles struck Ukraine’s Sumy Oblast, killing more than 90 people and wounding dozens. The Russian military deliberately targeted residential parts of the regional capital in a punitive effort against civilians. Because the Kremlin’s combat formations have pushed Ukrainian forces from much of the Russian region of Kursk, Russia may soon conduct a breaching maneuver into Ukraine via Sumy.
In return, the Ukrainian Air Force continued to fly brief sorties using air-to-ground munitions donated by its Western partners. This Ukrainian air activity highlighted gaps in Russia’s air defense architecture, which persist despite Moscow’s deployment of layered surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems along both front and rear areas.
The Ukrainian military also launched an incursion near the Russian city of Belgorod. Elite Ukrainian formations including the 225th Assault Infantry Regiment led the push. The 225th was equipped with Bradley Fighting Vehicles and aided by units that specialize in robotic warfare.
So far, the Ukrainian incursion has pushed just a few miles into Russia. This suggests that it is a limited military move designed to partially compensate for Ukraine’s ejection from much of Kursk. To support frontline fighters by disrupting Russia’s close-air-support assets, Ukrainian fire-support elements employed High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) against a rotary-wing base some 40 miles inside Russia. This attack damaged two Ka-52 and two Mi-8 helicopters. This report will continue to monitor whether the Russian high command will reallocate troops from Kursk to defend Belgorod or combat deploy them in occupied Ukraine to change local force-on-force and force-to-terrain ratios there.
Finally, to alleviate manpower shortages, the Ukrainian military opted to expand its Contract 18–24 volunteer recruitment program to include mechanized, airborne, and marine brigades.
2. Ukrainian Drones Hit Russia’s Engels Air Base
In a massive drone strike on March 20, the Ukrainian military hit the Engels air base in Russia’s Saratov Oblast, 380 miles from the border with Ukraine. The strike’s aftereffects, including explosions, secondary detonations, and large follow-on fires, suggest that the attack ignited munitions depots or fuel tankers in the area. Open-source imagery suggests that, at the very least, Ukraine damaged Russia’s weapons storage facilities at the base.
The successful strike underscores Ukraine’s ability to hit Russia at home. Moreover, the Engels base is a critical facility that hosts the VKS’s bomber fleet, including the Tu-95 and Tu-160 strategic platforms that often target Ukrainian cities with Kh-101 cruise missiles. Previous editions of this report highlighted the Kremlin’s rapid production of this cruise missile and its use against Ukrainian population centers.
A recent profile of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ main drone warfare formation, the 14th Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Regiment, underscored that unmanned systems are now a whole-of-military capability for Ukraine. Almost all of Ukraine’s branches and services employ robotic warfare assets, from first-person-view tactical drones to long-range kamikaze drones. These assets demonstrate Kyiv’s ability to innovate in the face of a grueling armed struggle.