Russian soldiers attempting to infiltrate Ukrainian positions by crawling for miles through abandoned underground pipelines are surviving for often just minutes when they reach the other end.

At a command post in northeastern Kharkiv Oblast, Ukrainian sergeant ‘Tovsty’ of the Khartiia Brigade painted a stark picture of the emerging tactic.

Drone feeds have repeatedly captured the same unsettling scene – Russian troops surfacing from disused pipes in a bid to slip behind Ukrainian lines.

A Russian soldier can hope to survive for a single hour after emerging from the underground pipeline, ‘but it’s usually 10 minutes, and that’s it,’ he told the Kyiv Independent.

The battlefield, he explained, has shifted decisively underground in parts of the front.

With drones saturating the skies, exposed movement has become near-suicidal, pushing Russian forces to exploit remnants of Soviet-era gas infrastructure as cover passageways.

‘You can’t really walk on the ground now in the war of drones, so everything is done underground,’ Tovsty said. But what appears to be a hidden route is in reality a brutal funnel of attrition.

For months, Ukrainian units have been locked in what commanders describe as a grim ‘whack-a-mole’ struggle – identifying exit points, eliminating troops as they emerge, sealing the holes, only for new openings to appear elsewhere.

In an emerging tactic, Russian soldiers attempting to infiltrate Ukrainian positions through abandoned underground pipelines are surviving for often just minutes 

Drone feeds have repeatedly captured the same unsettling scene – Russian troops surfacing from disused pipes in a bid to slip behind Ukrainian lines 

With drones saturating the skies, exposed movement has become near-suicidal, pushing Russian forces to exploit remnants of Soviet-era gas infrastructure as cover passageways 

Despite heavy losses and what Ukrainian officers describe as appalling conditions inside the pipes, the Russian army continues to feed men into the system.

The objective is Kupiansk, a strategically important town in Kharkiv Oblast near the Russian border, once occupied in the early days of the 2022 invasion before being retaken by Ukraine later that year.

Moscow has been attempting to reclaim it ever since.

At the centre of the fighting are four abandoned Soviet-era gas pipelines that cross beneath the Oskil River.

The infrastructure – once part of a system linking Kharkiv Oblast to Russia – now connects occupied territory with Ukrainian rear positions in the Kupiansk sector.

The pipes themselves are barely passable.

Soldiers must crawl roughly 15km through narrow, 1.2-metre-wide tunnels before reaching Ukrainian lines.

Some, Ukrainian commanders say, wait underground for extended periods while groups accumulate.

‘People die in there,’ the brigade’s deputy commander, who goes by the callsign ‘Abat,’ told the Ukrainian outlet.

‘They are just thrown out there, their weapons stuck to their backs (with duct tape) so they don’t lose them.’

Reports of the tactic first surfaced last year, with Ukrainian monitoring groups and open-source analysts describing improvised methods used inside the pipes – including wheeled benches and even electric scooters to move through the confined tunnels.

Russian media outlet Astra previously published a video in which a soldier described conditions inside another pipeline route, saying ‘dozens of soldiers suffocated, committed suicide, or died in panic and delirium’.

‘People were going crazy there. One shot himself. One… pointed a machine gun at himself. The second one smashed his head in,’ he said in a video.

Despite the risks, the tactic has produced occasional results.

In September 2025, Russian troops reportedly managed to infiltrate the northern outskirts of Kupiansk via the pipeline network, briefly threatening the town from the north before Ukrainian forces mounted a counteroffensive and pushed them back.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky later visited the area in December 2025, rejecting Russian claims of full control. 

Russian media outlet Astra previously published a video in which a soldier described conditions inside another pipeline route, saying ‘dozens of soldiers suffocated, committed suicide, or died in panic and delirium’ 

Despite heavy losses and what Ukrainian officers describe as appalling conditions inside the pipes, the Russian army continues to feed men into the system

Soldiers must crawl roughly 15km through narrow, 1.2-metre-wide tunnels before reaching Ukrainian lines

For months, Ukrainian units have been locked in what commanders describe as a grim ‘whack-a-mole’ struggle 

Since then, Ukrainian forces say they have significantly improved their ability to counter the tactic, sealing sections of pipeline and better mapping likely exit points.

‘The threat from Russian infiltration through pipelines in the Kupiansk sector was, in fact, uncontrollable,’ but Ukraine has since sealed off certain sections and better understands the routes,’ said ‘Druid,’ commander of an unmanned systems unit within the Khartiia Brigade.

Analysts say the tactic is locally disruptive but limited in scale.

‘(The pipelines) can be an effective strategy locally to cause confusion,’ Pasi Paroinen of Finland’s Black Bird Group, added.

Still, Russia continues to rely heavily on manpower-driven assaults in the sector, attempting to grind down Ukrainian defences through repeated infiltration and river crossings.

According to Ukrainian commanders, troops also attempt crossings of the Oskil River using boats or improvised cable systems in roughly equal numbers to those using pipelines.

They claim that around 95 per cent of such attempts end in casualties.

‘No matter how many troops they lose, they will keep hitting head-on to the end for Kupiansk,’ Abat says, calling the fighting ‘a bone in my throat.’

One of Ukraine’s biggest challenges, commanders admit, is that the pipelines themselves are extremely difficult to destroy. 

Even targeted strikes often fail to fully block them, as Russian troops simply dig around damaged sections.

Artillery is also limited by proximity to Ukrainian positions, leaving drones as the primary tool – though their firepower is insufficient to collapse the network permanently.

‘There is a hole – it is closed, filled in (with earth), and blown up. A hundred meters from it, another hole may appear, and after that, another one ten meters away,’ said ‘Druid.’

‘So we don’t have the possibility to close (holes in the pipelines) permanently,’ he added.

Russian troops emerging from the pipes are often disoriented, sometimes appearing confused or in poor condition after long underground journeys.

‘They just move randomly,’ Tovsty said, adding that drone operators occasionally attempt to guide them from above.

According to Ukrainian commanders, troops also attempt crossings of the Oskil River using boats or improvised cable systems in roughly equal numbers to those using pipelines

After months of countering the tactic, Ukrainian troops say they now know precisely where to position themselves

He also noted that Russian personnel inside the pipes can spend anywhere from weeks to months underground, depending on their role, with so-called ‘Veteran’ units – believed to include men with mining experience – used for infiltration operations.

After months of countering the tactic, Ukrainian troops say they now know precisely where to position themselves.

‘After more than half a year of countering Russia’s tactic, Tovsty says he and his men now know ‘100 per cent’ where to wait for the Russian soldiers to crawl out of the pipelines.’

Yet the attacks continue.

Across the Oskil, Russian forces also maintain pressure through repeated crossings on foot and by improvised means, with commanders estimating a roughly equal split between river and pipeline infiltration.

Military analyst Mick Ryan says the approach reflects a broader Russian strategy that has changed little since the start of the war.

‘Ukraine has developed more effective solutions to Russia’s key advantages, which are greater manpower and greater industrial production, and that is starting to hurt Russia,’ he said.

‘These are all little pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that indicate to me that we might be approaching a turning point if (Ukraine) keeps moving in this direction.’

But others are more cautious.

Austria-based military analyst Tom Cooper argues Ukraine should have taken stronger measures earlier, including installing sensors inside pipeline routes.

‘(Ukrainian troops) have to watch over all the possible pipelines (despite the manpower shortage), also behind the front line, they need additional troops which they don’t have to cover at depth as well,’ he said.

‘I mean, it’s a nightmare from their point of view.’