Ukraine’s Defense Forces have adopted the Russians’ tactic of fighting in underground tunnels. Military personnel from both warring countries are covering considerable distances through gas pipelines, trying to avoid the threat of drone strikes and catch the enemy by surprise. This is reported in an article by The New York Times, UNN reports.
Details
According to Maria Varenikova, a correspondent for The New York Times, while heading toward the entrance to the tunnel network, she narrowly escaped being hit by a Russian drone. She, the publication’s photographer, and the Ukrainian soldiers accompanying them had to jump out of the pickup truck on the move and hide from the Russian UAV along the road.
At the same time, journalist Simon Shuster notes in a publication on The Atlantic’s website that the new tactical methods are important for the course of the war. He discussed the issue with Ihor Obolenskyi, commander of the 2nd “Khartia” Corps of the National Guard of Ukraine.
The brigadier general said that initially, the Defense Forces tried to find the points where the Russians emerged onto the surface and destroy them. But they continued to appear several kilometers behind Ukrainian positions and attack.
The “Khartia” commander then turned to the state energy company with a request to provide maps of the pipeline network. The documents revealed the scale of the danger: it was a labyrinth of at least 57 steel pipes running beneath the combat zone, most of them one to two meters in diameter.
Previously, these pipes were used to pump Russian gas through Ukraine to European countries. But this stopped in 2025.
That same year, the Russians carried out “Operation Pipe”: between one hundred and several hundred soldiers crawled several kilometers along a section of the Urengoy–Pomary–Uzhhorod main gas pipeline and emerged behind Ukrainian troops in the Kursk region.
According to Obolenskyi, in October, after approximately six months of underground fighting, “Khartia” regained control of approximately 14 kilometers of pipelines in northeastern Ukraine as part of an operation codenamed “Veles.”