Ukraine Secures Sudzha, Denying Putin His Most Sought-After Trophy for February 24

Over to Pokrovosk

Timing matters.

Not in the cold calculations of enemy strengths and weaknesses, but in the Kremlin’s hunger for spectacle—for trophy wins. With February 24th looming, the third anniversary of a war Putin thought would last three days, the pressure is suffocating.

He needs a prize.

His economy teeters on the brink. His army bleeds faster than he can patch the wounds, struggling to replace the daily dead. A decisive victory in Kursk Oblast—seizing Sudzha, the linchpin town—would be more than just territory. It would be a desperate dictator’s trophy, a symbol to sell his war-weary nation. And he’s hunting for it.

By January 1, 2025, I had circled four Kremlin trophy targets:

• Sudzha

• Pokrovsk

• Kupiansk

• Some land parcel.

After relentless grinding, Russian forces inched closer to the southeastern edge of Sudzha—a town Ukraine seized on August 15, 2024.

178 days have passed. Ukraine still holds the Russian town. The frontline stretches nearly 25 km north of it. If Sudzha falls, so do the motorable supply routes feeding Ukraine’s northern defenses in Kursk Oblast.

After the fall of Sudzha, the other Russian towns under Ukrainian control would begin to collapse like dominoes. It wouldn’t mark the end of Ukraine’s foothold in Kursk, but it would severely restrict their operations. Worse, it would be a morale-shattering loss—one that sends the wrong message to the Trump administration, reinforcing the illusion that Putin can still seize strategic, high-value targets.

That’s why I ranked Sudzha as the Kremlin’s number one trophy target heading into February 24th.

Ukraine understood the stakes. They knew Putin would come for it. Since January 1, 2025, they have been grinding away at the margins in Kursk Oblast—sometimes cutting deep, sometimes calling in their air force, sometimes raining ATACMS missiles on Russian command posts. The eastern end of Kursk Oblast has been a battlefield in motion.

Now, the results are showing.

This was Ukraine’s frontline on January 1, 2025.

Screenshots from Deepstatemap

This is where it stands today.

They are highly likely to close this gap in the coming weeks.

With just two weeks left on the clock, the Kremlin is being forced to accept an uncomfortable reality: they won’t be claiming the Sudzha trophy on February 24th.

Two months after Ukraine stormed into Kursk Oblast, I assessed that Putin would need at least 100,000 troops to push them out. But he stalled, dragged his feet on mobilization, and only now has he managed to bring troop levels up to 80,000. It’s still not enough. As a result, I expect Ukraine to hold Sudzha when the anniversary arrives.

That leaves Putin with one real option—doubling down on his push for Pokrovsk. Under the circumstances, it’s his best bet. Hopefully, Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi is ready. He already forced Putin to downgrade his ambitions to trophy target number two. Now he needs to make sure that, when the time comes, he stops him again.