'Putin's out for revenge but we've broken the stalemate and our morale is very high'

From crippling bridges to defending the territory they have snatched in daring raids, soldiers resting in Ukraine’s border Sumy region tell Askold Krushelnycky they want to push on Ukrainian forces have damaged or destroyed three bridges in Russia’s Kursk region – aiming to cut crucial Russian supply lines in the latest chapter in Kyiv’s daring assault across the border, which the country’s president Volodymyr Zelensky says is achieving its military aims.

Ukraine’s troops know Russia will respond but want to take as much revenge against Vladimir Putin’s forces as they can. Soldiers from one of the brigades that spearheaded the offensive into Kursk have told The Independent how they laughed in disbelief and joy as they dug trenches inside Russia.

“It was an incredible feeling to realise that this time we were invading them and we laughed like madmen as we dug trenches on enemy land, Russian soil,” said a soldier with the codename Lyasha.

Lyasha, 28, and some of his comrades from a mechanised infantry unit had been fighting at the front lines of the Ukrainian offensive since its very beginning on 6 August. He said they had gone past Sudzha, a town six kilometres into the Russian side of the border that is an important hub for the main gas pipeline from Russia into Western Europe as well as a railway junction, and moved at least 20km deep into Russian territory.

There, they had dug in while others pressed forward in three or four directions, including towards Kursk region’s eponymous capital city which is close to one of Russia’s nuclear power plants.

At the little village cafe where we met along one of the routes towards the Sumy region’s border with Russia’s Kursk province, Lyasha said they had just driven back into Ukraine and were getting four or five days’ rest before they crossed the border back to the Russian battlefields.

When asked if that indicated the Ukrainian incursion into Russia was expected to carry on for some time – having already lasted two weeks – another of the soldiers with the war name “Afon” said: “I think that is a correct assumption.” The strikes on the bridges would suggest the same.