What to make of this news? Strategic genius? Fake news? Just another try at showing that the Russian military seems more effective at telling Putin good news than addressing corruption and incompetence? Rose-coloured reporting?
(Limited Economist giftlink below; excerpt:)
Ukraine surprises with a high-stakes raid into Russia; The second battle of Kursk is raging
Three days [after August 6], Ukraine’s unexpected cross-border raid into Russia’s Kursk region to the north-east shows no signs of abating. Since the start of the operation on the morning of August 6th, Russia has lost full control of at least 350 sq km of its territory. Scores of its soldiers have been killed or captured. A race is on to halt the advance—and prevent the Ukrainians from digging in.
By August 8th, Ukrainian forces had progressed towards Sudzha, 10km from the border, and Korenevo, 15km inside Russia. Fierce fighting continues in both areas. Reports suggest that smaller Ukrainian units have broken away and are fighting even deeper in. Social-media footage shows the results of the fighting: destroyed buildings and dead soldiers, scattered across pockmarked roads. Videos released on the first day showed a large group of Russian prisoners being marched away under armed guard…
An intelligence source says that Ukraine has been reassured by the early successes of the operation, which, he claims, has thrown Russia into paralysis. Russia is now using elite soldiers in dangerous ways to stem the advance, he says. Ukraine on the other hand is only advancing where it made sense. “The Russians are making very stupid errors and it’s all down to their corrupt top-down management which prioritises good news over the truth.” The Kursk incursion, which follows reverses in Kyiv, Kharkiv region and Kherson, represents the “fourth big failure” of Russia’s generals in mechanised, manoeuvre warfare. “We’ve now got options and the Russians know it.”
My WAG is that it’s mainly for morale - lifting up one’s own while humiliating the enemy.
It’s a bit akin to the Doolittle Raid - not something that has much military significance, but will unnerve the enemy by showing them how vulnerable they are and attacking their homeland in a way they didn’t thought could/would happen. It’s a big embarrassment for Putin and the invading nation to suddenly be the ones being invaded.
The Ukrainians will probably not hold the Kursk land for that long, but if they do, they could also swap it with Russia for territorial concessions in some sort of negotiation.
Agree. Kicking the enemy in the teeth has to be a decent uplift for Ukraine. And yeah, Russia has just shown that they are willing to make some trades to get something of theirs back, so why not?
The Russians are now deeply entrenched at the front in Ukraine. So the Ukrainians can either fight the war of attrition that Moscow wants… or they can shake things up a bit (and disrupt supply lines etc. in the process). Hence this cross-border incursion.
To use a chess analogy, one common tactic that (some) players use is that when you are about to put their king in check, they don’t respond by defending the king. They respond by promptly putting your king in check so you have to, at least temporarily, ditch your plans.
Yes, and it will hopefully have the opposite, demoralizing effect on Russian troops. It’s said that Afghanistan was Russia’s Vietnam, but could Ukraine be yet another?
And sometimes you can get some development out of your pieces when you do this (i.e., putting yourself in a better position overall), while your opponent can’t develop while getting out of check. And sometimes you can even do a few of these in a row, to gain a major positional advantage.
If nothing else, this should result in some serious damage to Russia’s rail infrastructure. With a quick, in-and-out raid, you can damage rail lines enough to make them unusable, but usually the damage that you can deal quickly can also be repaired quickly. But when you’re dug in to a location for a few days, you can start doing some serious damage, that’s much harder to repair. Maybe even leave some booby-traps for the repair crews, or subtle damage that won’t become evident until the enemy tries to use it.
I originally thought it was for morale, but it might be something bigger. Apparently they’ve brought HIMARS with them and destroyed several columns of reinforcements with them. Have some air defense as well. I still think it’s unlikely they hold the territory for any large period of time, but it’s definitely not - go in, burn some buildings, shoot some cops, and leave - like they’ve done previously. I wonder what the additional penetration lets them range with ATACAMS.
IIRC, Ukraine has only penetrated about 20 miles or so into Russian territory. Bringing in ATACMS would be nice but their range would have only been extended by 20 miles. But if the Ukrainians go deeper they may get access to juicy targets that the Russians would never have thought of withdrawing until very recently.
I don’t actually this is the plan nor possible, but I had never even envisioned it before. Now I can.
Can Ukraine now move east towards Belagrod, then south towards Sea of Azoz. They’d have the Russian land bridge/military enveloped. And I doubt that route is mined nor even well fortified. Just dreaming…
I don’t know much about chess. I do think that if black starts without a bishop, knight and rook, half its pawns, then loses a couple more pieces, but in just a few moves white has lost all it’s pawns, several other major pieces, and its moves are made by a narcissistic psychotic, all while a good friend is handing black some extra pieces under the table, then white may be in some trouble.
