On March 6, 2025, Ukrainian forces were still holding the town of Sudzha in Russia's Kursk Region. What they did not know was that, right behind them, Russian troops would emerge from beneath the ground the very next day. More than 800 soldiers had made their way through 15 kilometres of a gas pipeline with a single objective – to liberate Sudzha. The operation was codenamed Potok-3. A similar tactic had led to the liberation of Toretsk and Avdeevka earlier.
