Ukraine’s War Goes Underground As Troops Battle Inside Gas Pipelines

Russian and Ukrainian soldiers are fighting a brutal underground war inside narrow Soviet-era gas pipelines, turning the battlefield beneath Ukraine into a deadly new front as drones make movement above ground increasingly dangerous.

Ukrainian forces have launched an underground counteroffensive near Kupiansk, reversing a Russian tactic that previously allowed Moscow’s troops to infiltrate behind enemy lines, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The operation has reportedly killed more than 100 Russian soldiers and resulted in dozens of prisoners, according to Ukraine’s Defense Ministry.

The fighting underground has become exceptionally dangerous. One video posted on Instagram by Ukraine’s 39th Brigade and Dark Navy Syndicate appears to show a heavily fortified position in a tunnel where a Ukrainian soldier is firing an M2 .50 caliber machine gun.

The position is so heavily fortified that the gunner cannot see what he is shooting at on the other side of the sandbags. He could be firing at enemy troops, or simply spraying his .50 at nothing.

“Drones and increasingly sophisticated surveillance techniques have forced both sides underground big time,” Matt Boyse, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “While bunkers and other protective measures have been major fixtures of the war on both sides since the first Russian invasion in 2014, subterranean combat is a relatively new area, as Russia in particular has sought to avoid Ukrainian ‘kill zones.'”

“The Russians have used drainage tunnels in urban warfare and natural gas pipelines to try to infiltrate behind Ukrainian lines. The Ukrainians have fought back by flooding pipelines, mining or sealing them, but also in close-quarters combat,” Boyse added.

Another video, posted on X by Zelenskyy, shows what appears to be Russian prisoners of war being transported through the pipelines, wearing duct tape as makeshift blindfolds.

The mission, dubbed Operation Veles, involved Ukrainian troops advancing more than nine miles through underground pipelines beneath the northeastern Kharkiv region, according to the Ukrainian military.

Ukraine’s National Guard 2nd Khartiia Corps coordinated the underground assault with surface operations and drone strikes, seeking to cut off Russian infiltration routes near Kupiansk, according to the Ukrainian military.