Caught Russia off guard again — NGU reserve major on Ukraine’s second Kursk incursion

Oleksii Hetman, reserve major of the National Guard of Ukraine (NGU), shared the information on Espreso TV.

“We can rely only on officially confirmed information, because other information may not correspond to what is actually happening. The official information is as follows: using special demining equipment, we created certain corridors to allow passage and to clear paths through the minefields that were there. Near Tetkino, heavy equipment and some of our units advanced. This is the official information that can be relied upon,” he said.

According to Hetman, other information may be fragmentary, but another question arises.

“When the enemy pushed us back to the border, they withdrew a large number of troops and redeployed them to other directions. Now there are fewer Russian forces and resources there, so we again used the element of surprise. After each of our successful operations, the Russians claim that they will not fall for this trick again, that there can be no more surprises — they control and see everything. But they do not control and do not see everything. An interesting point is how active drones are now. And if this demining equipment was not attacked by drones and was able to pass through, followed by our heavy equipment and units dispersing, it means that the Russians really did withdraw a large number of troops and our strike was indeed unexpected,” Hetman summarized.

• On May 4, the Ukrainian Air Forces carried out a successful strike on the command post of Russian UAV units near the settlement of Tetkino, Kursk region.
• On May 5, reports claimed that Ukrainian troops had broken through the border of Russia’s Kursk region for the second time, launching missiles and using special equipment to cross minefields. The Telegraph reported this, citing Russian “reporters.”