The Russian military command had expected Ukraine to invade the Kursk region and had been making plans to prevent it for months, according to a series of documents that the Ukrainian army claims to have captured from abandoned Russian positions in the region.

This revelation makes the disarray among Russian forces after the Ukrainian attack in early August all the more embarrassing. The documents, seen by the Guardian, also show that Russia is worried about morale in the ranks at Kursk. These concerns have been heightened following the suicide of a soldier at the front who was reportedly in a “prolonged state of depression” due to his service in the Russian army.

The unit commanders are instructed to ensure that the soldiers consume Russian state media on a daily basis in order to maintain their “mental state”.

The Guardian could not independently verify the authenticity of the documents, although they bear the signature of genuine Russian army communications. In late August, the Guardian met the Ukrainian special operations team that seized the documents hours after they left Russian territory. The team said it had taken Russian interior ministry, FSB and army documents from buildings in the Kursk region and later made a selection available for viewing and photographing.

Some of the documents are printed orders distributed to various units, while others are handwritten logs recording events and concerns at specific positions. The earliest entries date back to late 2023, while the most recent documents were created just six weeks before Ukraine began its invasion of the Kursk region on August 6.

The documents mostly come from units of the 488th Guards Motor Rifle Regiment of Russia, in particular from the second company of its 17th battalion.

Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk surprised Kyiv’s Western partners and many members of the Ukrainian elite, as the planning was limited to a very small number of people. But Russian military documents contain months of warnings about a possible invasion of the area and an attempt to occupy Suzha, a town of 5,000 that has now been under Ukrainian occupation for over a month.

A January 4 entry mentioned the “potential for a breakthrough at the state border” by Ukrainian armed groups and ordered increased training to repel any attack. On February 19, unit commanders were warned of Ukrainian plans for a “rapid advance from the Sumy region into Russian territory to a depth of 80 km (50 miles) to create a four-day ‘corridor’ before the arrival of the main Ukrainian army units with armored vehicles.”

In mid-March, units on the border were ordered to strengthen defense lines in preparation for a Ukrainian cross-border attack and to “organize additional exercises for the leadership of units and bases on the proper organization of defense.”

In mid-June there was a more concrete warning of Ukrainian plans “in the direction of Yunakivka-Sudzha, with the aim of bringing Sudzha under control,” which in fact happened in August. There was also a prediction that Ukraine would try to destroy a bridge across the Sejm to cut off Russian supply lines in the region, which later happened. The June document complained that Russian units stationed at the front “are on average only 60-70% manned and consist mainly of poorly trained reserves.”

When the Ukrainian attack came on August 6, many Russian soldiers left their positions and within a week Ukraine had taken complete control of Sudzha. “They fled without evacuating or destroying their documents,” said a member of the special operations unit that seized the files.

During Moscow’s chaotic retreat, Ukrainian troops captured hundreds of Russian soldiers, including many conscripts who do not normally go into combat. The parents of a second company conscript mentioned in the documents recorded a tearful video appeal in August, identifying him as their 22-year-old son, Vadim Kopylov. They said he was captured near Sudzha and called on Russian authorities to exchange him.

The documents provide insight into Russian tactics over the past year. In one case, there is talk of the need to create deception trenches and positions to confuse Ukrainian reconnaissance drones. “Models of tanks, armored vehicles and artillery launchers, as well as dummies of soldiers, are to be built and regularly deployed,” says one order.

It added that some soldiers would be sent to the dummy positions to light fires at night and walk around with torches. Russia would also broadcast radio messages about the dummy positions so that they could be intercepted. It is unclear whether such positions were ever set up. Members of a Ukrainian unit that has been flying reconnaissance drones in the area in recent weeks told the Guardian they had seen no evidence of such positions.

In March, Russian documents noted that there were increasing cases of Ukrainian sabotage groups disguising their work behind Russian lines by wearing Russian uniforms. “To prevent the enemy from penetrating our combat formations, commanders must use identification markers of the N6 variant, made of 8 cm wide material and attached with invisible tape,” an order from this month said.

Hidden in the dry, meandering official language are signs of serious problems with morale at the front. “Analysis of the current situation regarding suicides shows that the issue of soldiers’ deaths caused by suicide remains tense,” says one entry, describing an incident that reportedly occurred on January 20 this year, when a conscript entered a guard post’s summer washing place and shot himself in the abdomen.

“The investigation into the incident revealed that the cause of the suicide and death was a nervous and psychological breakdown caused by a prolonged state of depression due to his service in the Russian army,” the handwritten report on the incident said.

To prevent further such incidents, unit commanders are instructed to identify soldiers who are “psychologically unprepared to perform their duties or who are prone to deviant behavior and to organize their reassignment and transfer to military medical facilities.”

Further instructions on maintaining morale are contained in an undated typed document, which states that soldiers should receive five to ten minutes of political instruction daily and one hour once a week, “with the aim of maintaining and improving the political, moral and psychological condition of the personnel.”