The drone detector beeps and flashes urgently.
It has detected the radio transmissions from an incoming Russian first-person view (FPV) drone; one of the small, remotely-controlled killing machines that now account for the majority of casualties on both sides.
“We need to leave, get in the cars,” orders Andreyi, our Ukrainian military intelligence escort.
As The Telegraph rapidly exits the deserted central square of Sudzha, automatic weapon fire is audible in the near distance as Ukrainian soldiers open up on the incoming Russian drone.
One of the reasons Ukraine’s surprise invasion of Kursk initially went so smoothly was the absence of Russian drone teams, a member of Ukrainian military intelligence told The Telegraph.
It was indicative of a larger lack of preparation by the Russian army at the border.
As Russia has since scrambled to react to the Ukrainian offensive, more drone teams are being utilised and the skies above Kursk Oblast are now – like every other part of the front – saturated with the small aircraft.
The Aug 6 incursion into Kursk surprised the world. Since Russia escalated its conflict with its neighbour in February 2022, the narrative had been one of heroic resistance repelling marauding invaders.
But that all changed when the Ukrainian army crossed the border into the Kursk region, capturing Russian towns and potentially creating a bargaining chip for president Volodymyr Zelensky, if peace talks ever happen.
When his troops entered Russia, they found the Kremlin’s forces completely unprepared. They seized more territory in two weeks than Russia had seized from Ukraine in the whole of 2024. Around 1,200 sq km (470 sq miles), according to Ukraine’s commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskyi.
The Telegraph was given the opportunity to visit Sudzha, one of the occupied towns. I was one of the few Western journalists allowed to do so.
Our trip began at a casualty receiving and humanitarian aid distribution station, a few miles from the Russian-Ukrainian border.
As we waited for our Ukrainian military contact, a small puppy ran around with boundless energy biting the shoelaces of the medics.
It was rescued from Russia, one of the medics says. “She’s a war trophy,” one of the Ukrainian soldiers adds with a smile.
Andreyi, our escort, agreed to take us to visit Sudzha, a small Russian town captured in the early stages of the occupation of Kursk Oblast.
And whilst the Ukrainian forces took Sudzha relatively intact, Russian strikes are now slowly levelling it.
“When we took the town there was almost no damage,” Andreyi said, something relatively easily verified by videos posted by advancing Ukrainian soldiers at the time. “And two weeks ago it was quiet. Now they’re hitting the town with artillery, drones and glide bombs.”
It is a familiar story. For the last two years, one of Russia’s main tactics for taking Ukrainian settlements has simply been to pound them into rubble with heavy artillery and air strikes, before moving in waves of disposable infantry to occupy the ruins.
Before we leave for Russia, a white triangle is applied to the vehicle we are travelling in and blue tape is wrapped around our arms: a simple but effective measures to identify that we are not Russian infiltrators to Ukrainian forces inside Kursk.
The situation inside the Ukrainian-controlled portion of Russia is tense. After initial successes, Russia is now counter-attacking in force.
Some of its FPV teams have been moved to the Kursk region in an attempt to push back the Ukrainian incursion, a member of the Ukrainian 80th Airborne reveals. It suggests the strategy of attempting to draw Russian forces away from Ukraine’s Donbas region has been at least partially successful.
As a result of the drone threat, the military vehicle in front of us – driven by Andreyi and our other Ukrainian escorts – bristles with antennas, making it a powerful electronic warfare jamming system designed to detect and defend against drones.
We’re all aware that an experienced FPV pilot is largely capable of negating such measures, so our best defence is to drive fast to not stay in any one location for too long, and look as inconspicuous as possible.
As we enter Russia, we pass the destroyed border crossing, smashed in the initial Ukrainian assault.
The road to Sudzha is lined with a number of destroyed armoured vehicles; we pass a Ukrainian M109 self-propelled gun sitting abandoned in a field and then the burnt out shells of two Russian tanks in quick succession.
On the outskirts of the town, we drive by numerous destroyed buildings; the charred skeletal remains of one civilian property is still smouldering. According to our escort, it was struck by a Russian artillery or drone strike a few hours ago.
There are no emergency services left to respond to the fire; Sudzha is deserted. What little signs of life remain largely consist of a number of stray cats and dogs and a small contingent of Ukrainian military.
The town is only around 5 km from the “greyzone” – the uncontrolled section of the battlefield between Ukrainian and Russian positions, where any detected movement is invariably immediately subjected to artillery fire and FPV strikes by either side.
As such, it is also easily in range of Russian artillery and drones. Russian sabotage groups are also a constant threat, Andreyi says. “There are small groups of Russians everywhere,” he says. “Sometimes as close as 800 metres to the houses on the edge of town.”
These Russian infiltrators attempt to penetrate Ukrainian lines in small numbers under cover of darkness, to lay mines and ambush patrols.
As we arrive at the central square of Sudzha. Andreyi and his men seem relatively relaxed, showing us the plinth where a statue of Lenin once resided. Only rubble now remains, the statue having been blown up by Ukrainian soldiers.
Pasted on the side of the plinth are photographs of towns in Ukraine that Russia has destroyed. Ukrainian flags, the flag of the “Kursk People’s Republic” (a trollish reference to the Kremlin’s “people’s republics” set up in Donetsk and Luhansk) and the flag of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (the government in exile of the anti-Kadyrov Chechen exiles, who fight alongside Ukraine) fly in the square.
Apartments just off the central square are all abandoned; the doors left unlocked and swinging wide open.
Ukrainian troops have cleared each building to ensure that no Russian soldiers remain behind.
But hazards could remain. “Be careful; don’t touch anything,” warns Andreyi. “There could be booby traps.”
We returned to the vehicle just as the drone detector beeped and we made our hurried exit from Sudzha.
When we arrived back at our starting point in the relative safety of the Ukrainian side of the border, Andreyi’s nerves had given way to an avuncular mood.
He is clearly proud of the Ukrainian military’s achievements in Kursk.
Whilst the long-term impact of Ukraine’s surprise push is still to be seen, they have at the very least shown how meaningless Russia’s much vaunted “red lines” actually are.
