On March 8 and 9, the Russian army launched a major offensive near the town of Sudzha in the Kursk region, which has been under Ukrainian occupation since August 2024. Russian forces recaptured several settlements in the area, and a group of Russian soldiers even used a gas pipeline to strike behind Ukrainian lines — a raid that has been dubbed “Operation Stream” (though there are conflicting reports about its success). According to The New York Times, the halt in U.S. intelligence sharing with Kyiv contributed to the Russian army’s success by significantly weakening the Ukrainian military’s ability to detect and strike Russian forces in the Kursk region.
Meduza reviews what we know about Operation Stream (which has also gained the name “Operation Pipe” online), what both sides of the conflict are saying about it, and what has been happening recently in Russia’s partly occupied border region.