Ukrainian soldiers were tired of Russia telling them to hold on and wait for Trump

The tone is dark, even angry.

“The situation is getting worse every day.”

“We don’t see the goal. Our world is not here.”

Nearly four months after the Ukrainian military launched a blitzkrieg in Russia’s Kursk region, messages from soldiers fighting there paint a grim picture of a war they don’t fully understand and fear they may be losing.

We have been in contact, via Telegram, with several soldiers serving in Kursk, one of whom has just left. We have agreed that we will not identify any of them.

There is no real name in this article.

They talk about the bad weather and the constant sleeplessness caused by the bombing of Russia, including the use of the dreaded, 3,000kg glide bombs.

They retreated again, and Russian troops gradually took over.

“This trend will continue,” wrote Pavlo on November 26. “It’s only a matter of time.”

Pavlo spoke of extreme fatigue, lack of circulation and the arrival of units, composed mainly of middle-aged men, brought directly from other countries with little or no time to rest in between.

Hearing soldiers complain – about their superiors, orders and lack of equipment – is not uncommon. That’s what soldiers often do in difficult situations.

Under heavy pressure from the enemy and as winter sets in, it can be surprising to feel so hopeful.

But the messages we received were almost uniformly bleak, suggesting that motivation is a problem.

Some have questioned whether one of the original aims of the operation – to divert Russian troops from eastern Ukraine – has worked.

The orders now, they say, were supposed to stick to this piece of Russian territory until a new American president, with new policies, arrives at the White House at the end of January.

“The main task we are facing is to hold a large area until Trump is installed and negotiations begin,” said Pavlo. “So that we can exchange something later. No one knows what it is.”

In late November, President Zelensky revealed that both parties had a change in the American administration.

“I’m sure he is [Putin] he wants to get us out on January 20,” he said.

“It is very important for him to show that he is in control of the situation. But he is not in control of the situation.”

In an effort to help Ukraine prevent a Russian invasion of Kursk, the US, UK and France have all allowed Kyiv to use long-range weapons against targets inside Russia.

It doesn’t seem to have done much to lift spirits.

“No one sits in a cold ditch and prays for arrows,” said Pavlo.

“We live and fight here and now. And the arrows are flying somewhere else.”

Atacms and Storm Shadow missiles may have been used to do powerful, or even devastating, damage to command posts far away from ammunition dumps, but such success seems far from the frontline soldiers.

“We are not talking about missiles,” said Myroslav. “In the dormitories we talk about family and exchange. About the simple things.”

In Ukraine, Russia’s slow-moving, grinding east of Ukraine underscores the need to hold on to Kursk.

In October alone, Russia was able to occupy an area of ​​approximately 500 sq km of Ukrainian territory, most of which was taken from the first days of the full-scale invasion in 2022.

In contrast, Ukraine has already lost nearly 40 percent of the territory it took from Kursk in August.

“The key is not to hold but to hold,” Vadym said, “and we’re struggling with that.”

Despite the loss, Vadym thinks the Kursk campaign is still important.

“It was able to divert others [Russian] troops from Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv regions,” he said.

But some soldiers we spoke to said they felt they were in the wrong place, that it was more important to be on the eastern border of Ukraine, than to take part of Russia.

“Our place should have been there [in eastern Ukraine]not here in someone else’s country,” said Pavlo. “We don’t need these Kursk forests, where we left many comrades.”

And despite weeks of reports suggesting that as many as 10,000 North Korean troops have been sent to Kursk to join the Russian war effort, the military we’ve contacted has yet to meet them.

“I have never seen or heard anything about Koreans, alive or dead,” Vadym answered when we asked about these reports.

The Ukrainian military has released recordings it says are of North Korean radio communications.

The soldiers said they had been told to capture at least one North Korean prisoner, possibly with documents.

They talked about rewards – drones or extra leave – being offered to anyone who successfully captures a North Korean soldier.

“It is very difficult to find a Korean in the dark forest of Kursk,” commented Pavlo sarcastically. “Especially when he’s not there.”

Veterans of previous doomed operations see parallels to what happened at Kursk.

From October 2023 until July this year, Ukrainian forces tried to hold on to a small bridge in Krynky, on the left bank of the Dnipro River, about 40 kilometers upstream from the liberated city of Kherson.

The bridgehead, originally intended to be a base for advancing into Russian-held territory in southern Ukraine, ended up being lost.

The surgery was very expensive. About 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers are thought to have been killed.

Others began to see it as a distraction, designed to distract attention from the lack of development in other areas.

They fear the same could happen in Kursk.

“It’s a good idea but not implemented properly,” said Myroslav, a naval officer who served in Krynky and is now in Kursk.

“It’s a media effect, but there’s no military effect.”

Military analysts emphasize that despite all the difficulties, the Kursk campaign continues to play an important role.

“It’s the only place where we keep the system,” Serhiy Kuzan, of the Ukraine Security and Cooperation Center, told me.

He acknowledged that Ukraine’s military was facing “extremely difficult conditions” in Kursk, but said that Russia was providing a lot of resources to take it out – resources that he would prefer to use elsewhere.

“If we can hold the Kursk front for a long time – with enough equipment, weapons, Himars and long-range weapons to strike from the rear – the better,” he said.

In Kyiv, senior officials defended the Kursk operation, arguing that it was still reaping military and political rewards.

“This situation angers Putin,” one said recently, on condition of anonymity. “You lost a lot there.”

As for how long the Ukrainian army would be able to hold on to Kursk, the answer was straightforward.

“As long as it is possible from a military point of view.”