Deeper and Deeper: How the War Is Shifting to a New Dimension, Why Russia Has the Advantage, but Ukraine Is Learning Quickly

When the Russians carried out Operation "Truba" in March 2025 and infiltrated the rear of our troops in Sudzha, Kursk Oblast, via the "Urengoy–Pomary – Uzhhorod” main gas pipeline, the internet was flooded with memes.

Ukrainians shared images of dozens of occupiers who had been poisoned and suffocated during their “journey.” The Kremlin, on the other hand, mythologized the event and exploited it to the fullest for propaganda: they wrote an entire song about it, filmed TV segments, and in some kindergartens, they even forced children to crawl through pipes to reenact the “heroic breakthrough.”

The consequences of this operation can be considered controversial – the Russians note that it was precisely several hundred fighters, who unexpectedly for the Defense Forces found themselves near the city and established a foothold there, who created a key bridgehead for regaining control over their own territories, while analysts argue that the operation was not decisive. However, “The Pipe” should be viewed not in the context of maneuvers during the battles in the Kurshchyna region, but as the full-fledged beginning of the war’s transition to a new phase.

The idea of using underground utilities to infiltrate troops was not new at the time: the invaders had first carried out such a tactical move in Avdiivka in the winter of 2024. The occupiers used an old water pipe to get behind Ukrainian units, and Russian propagandists, led by Putin, began to spin this into a “myth.”

However, even they did not know that this incident would mark the beginning of yet another major transformation in modern warfare, and in the fall of 2026, the Defense Forces would carry out their own large-scale underground operation, codenamed “Veles.”

Read the 24 Channel report to find out why combat operations will take place underground over the next few years, how to prepare for this, and where the Russians hold a slight advantage.

A New Milestone or a Return to the Forgotten Past: Why War Is Moving Underground

The course of the Russian-Ukrainian war has fundamentally rewritten the tactics and strategy of modern warfare. Until 2022, the world relied on lightning-fast operations involving aircraft and heavy equipment, aiming to maximize enemy destruction from a distance before advancing infantry.

Moscow’s full-scale invasion has shown that extremely expensive missiles, bombs, and drones do have an advantage, but the key factor on the battlefield is not just quality, as was previously believed, but quantity. The side capable of producing the maximum number of cheap and effective weapons in the shortest possible time has the advantage in the conflict. Tanks and other armored vehicles, once the striking force of an offensive, have essentially ceased to exist, as drones have appeared en masse on the battlefield.

Drones and ground-based robotic systems, some equipped with artificial intelligence, have come to dominate the combat zone, creating what is known as the “Kill Zone” – a 30–35-kilometer-wide strip (and in some cases up to 50 kilometers) in which any living thing will be destroyed as quickly as possible.

Under these conditions, movement along the front line and in the immediate rear has become incredibly difficult, as have attempts to concentrate forces to establish numerical superiority in a given sector. Given this, the success of Operation "Vivaldi" is unique, where a number of factors have come together successfully. Therefore, the military must seek new, reliable options for successful advancement.

Only drones, fire, and death reign in the kill zone / Photo by Vadym Filashkin, head of the Donetsk Civil-Military Administration

This type of warfare has forced the infantry to dig in as deep as possible underground, and, as a result, another global transformation in the approach to conducting combat operations began in a short period of time. As of the end of October 2026, a full-scale shift of the war into this new dimension had not yet taken place, but the corresponding trend had already clearly crystallized: since it is impossible to conceal one’s actions from the enemy on the surface, one is forced to go underground.

History Repeats Itself

Such tactics are not fundamentally new, as they have been actively used for hundreds of years. The height of underground warfare occurred during World War I. Ernst Jünger wrote about these episodes in his iconic books, and the screenwriters of the equally iconic series *Peaky Blinders* portrayed their characters as participants in mine warfare on the opposing side.

But underground or tunnel warfare wasn’t limited to the Western Front; equally fierce battles took place between Italian and Austro-Hungarian troops in the Alps, where units composed of miners – including some from Western Ukraine – were involved in underground and sub-mountain battles on both sides.

Tourists in the mines near the town of Vauquois (France) – one of the most famous sites of underground warfare during World War I / photo by Léa Didier, estrepublicain.fr

The reasons why troops began digging deep underground were the same as they are today. However, during World War I, the term “No Man’s Land” was preferred over “Kill Zone.”

Looking at more recent times, active underground warfare took place in Vietnam (Viet Cong guerrillas and North Vietnamese Army soldiers actively used extensive networks of underground tunnels for logistics, covert movement, and sabotage), as well as in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, the Gaza Strip, and generally in all wars in the East where the opposing forces were vastly unequal.

The 200-kilometer-long Củ Chi Tunnels, used during the Vietnam War / Photo: Wikimedia

However, while the Viet Cong, the mujahideen, the Hamas members, and members of other military groups had to dig tunnels out of necessity to wage asymmetric warfare against a superior enemy, the war in Ukraine is not a return to a forgotten past.

The reason for the shift of combat operations underground is precisely that, for an infantryman, this is virtually the only way to move undetected by the enemy and avoid the threat of drones. Furthermore, it is now practically impossible to establish reliable supply lines for ammunition and food, or to evacuate people, by any other means.

The fact that the Russians are increasingly using underground tunnels to move their personnel is not at all because the invading forces are attempting to wage asymmetric warfare against the numerically superior Ukrainian Defense Forces. In Vovchansk, for example, the Russians have begun digging tunnels toward the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ defensive positions, breaking through basement walls, and excavating tunnels solely to secure their logistics and carry out sabotage operations.

It’s not worth going into detail about just how extensively Ukraine’s defenders are building underground infrastructure (so as not to reveal our plans to the enemy), but Operation "Veles" clearly demonstrates active adaptation to the new conditions of war.

During Operation “Veles,” Defense Forces soldiers traveled more than 15 kilometers underground / Screenshot from video

From what representatives of “Khartiia” have shared, it becomes clear that at least some units of the National Guard’s 2nd Corps have special underground simulators where soldiers trained to conduct assault operations.

The war is gradually shifting underground, and it seems only a matter of time before most of the fighting takes place in tunnels and pipes.

First-person details of Operation “Veles” – watch the video:

The Russians have access to their allies’ experience

It’s safe to say that in just a year or two – barring another military-technological revolution – most combat operations will take place underground.

The use of drainage systems, mines, and old pipelines to move behind enemy lines or simply to secretly relocate forces, as well as the construction of full-fledged tunnel networks, will become our reality just as quickly as the emergence of underground UGVs and fiber-optic-based drones.

Furthermore, the Russians are already actively relocating weapons production to areas protected from missiles and drones. For example, within the “Alabuga” Special Economic Zone, North Koreans are actively building underground workshops.

Expansion of “Alabuga” underground / Dnipro Osint

Modern warfare unequivocally requires that all factories, warehouses, and all possible infrastructure facilities be concealed as much as possible from airstrikes. In this regard, the Russians have a slight advantage: their allies have extensive experience building everything necessary at great depths. Both North Korea and Iran, along with its proxies, have been developing underground military cities for decades as part of their strategic concept for protecting their weapons. Pyongyang was, in fact, the first to master the technology of building underground factories, while Iran scaled it up to industrial levels and adapted it for guerrilla warfare.

So there is no doubt that the Russians are actively involving their own allies in moving strategically important facilities underground, as well as very actively adopting the combat experience of the Houthis and Hezbollah. At the very least, the “Alabuga” case clearly demonstrates this, as satellite images show that workers used the North Korean method of “buried hangars,” in which massive concrete structures are built in open excavations, then covered with slabs and buried under dozens of meters of soil.

Factories buried under earth, where missiles are produced for Russia. North Korea, April 2026 / NK Pro

As for the front lines, Russian troops, unfortunately, have always been skilled at digging quickly and efficiently. However, in the context of modern drone warfare, the digging of tunnels and underground utility lines on the front lines has reached an entirely new level. The invaders are building entire tunnel networks.

A similar situation is unfolding within the Defense Forces. The military is fully adapting to close-quarters combat in confined spaces, with the devastating effects of explosions (when oxygen is simply burned out), concussions, and so on, as well as the lack of lighting and other nuances of firefights.

It is on Ukrainian soil that the next transformation of the war is currently taking place. And only time will tell what it will look like in six months to a year.