From last post on previous page:

quote:

… and imperils vital US support.

How much of this "support" is actually getting there after Zelenskyy and the others have siphoned it off? After the fact that the place has no strategic value to the US in the first place, this is my biggest beef with this mess.

Prez Z, it would be best in the interests of all, you especially, to make a deal now and cut your losses while you can. It’s only going to get worse from here on out. WHEN DJT regains the Presidency, everything and NATO too are going to be on the chopping block.

I have always said I do not believe the Russians are going to suffer so many loses and then give up. They lost millions to the Germans but stuck it out.

Report from this morning.

Putin 10 year plan link

Looks like a good way to lose a brigade, a thousand soldiers and a lot of military equipment that is in short supply. Is thus Ukraine's battle of the bulge moment?


Ukraine Forces Reach 10km Into Russia's Kursk Region As Raid Enters 3rd Day

https://www.zerohedge.com/geop...-raid-enters-3rd-day

The Ukrainian attack on Russian territory in the Kursk region is by far the most serious cross-border assault by Kiev forces of the entire war, and it is now in its third day.

A report by the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) says that Ukrainian troops have advanced up to ten kilometers inside Russian territory, while some unconfirmed reports have claimed further reach.

The assault kicked off early Tuesday morning and by Wednesday the Ukrainians claimed the capture of Sudzha, which lies about 8km across the Ukraine border, and has a key gas logistical hub in the same city.

Zelensky's office kept quiet as the offensive initially unfolded, but presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak has since said on social media, "The root cause of any escalation, shelling, military actions, forced evacuations and destruction of normal life forms – including within the Russian Federation’s own territories like Kursk and Belgorod regions – is solely Russia’s unequivocal aggression."

Kursk Oblast's governor has declared a formal state of emergency and thousands of civilians in towns and villages near the border have been evacuated amid reports of casualties.

Ukrainian sources have said that during the initial assault, a number of Russian border guards and conscripts surrendered; however, videos of the border fighting also make clear that the Ukraine invading force suffered heavy losses as Russia quickly called in airpower...



One question remains is: why?... given that this is basically a suicide mission. Some Ukraine war analysts have claimed it is at least in part about causing confusion in Russian military ranks and forcing the diversion of resources away from frontlines in the Donbass region, where Moscow forces have steadily advanced of late:

“It wasn’t accidental,” said war expert Kostyantyn Mashovets in a Facebook post. “It’s clearly part of one clear plan."

Mykhaylo Zhyrokhov, a military analyst, agrees. He told the BBC that Russia had been forced to redeploy some troops there from the front line in eastern Ukraine.

“If you look at official reports, there were significantly fewer Russian glide bombs dropped in the Donetsk area,” he said. “That means the aircraft which carry them are now elsewhere in Russia.”

Russian media has meanwhile taken note of a fresh European Union statement lauding the brazen Ukrainian raid on Russian territory, with European Commission spokesman Peter Stano saying the EU fully supports the actions of Ukraine's military.

Pro-Ukraine pundits are in some instances hailing the rapid destruction of Russian military hardware and oil and gas infrastructure...

More at link


Battles rage in Kursk region after Ukraine's largest incursion yet into Russia

https://www.france24.com/en/eu...to-russian-territory

Fighting continued for a third day on Thursday after around 1,000 Ukrainian troops crossed the Russian border with tanks and armoured vehicles earlier this week, prompting Russia to declare a state of emergency in the Kursk region.

Russian forces were battling Ukrainian troops for a third day on Thursday after they smashed through the Russian border in the Kursk region, an audacious attack on the world's biggest nuclear power that has forced Moscow to call in reserves.

In one of the biggest Ukrainian attacks on Russia of the two-year war, around 1,000 Ukrainian troops rammed through the Russian border in the early hours of Aug. 6 with tanks and armoured vehicles, covered in the air by swarms of drones and pounding artillery, according to Russian officials.

Ukrainian forces swept through the fields and forests of the border towards the north of the border town of Sudzha, the last operational trans-shipping point for Russian natural gas to Europe via Ukraine. President Vladimir Putin cast the attack as a "major provocation".

The White House said the United States - Ukraine's biggest backer - had no prior knowledge of the attack and would seek more details from Kyiv. Russia's most senior general, chief of general staff, Valery Gerasimov, told Putin on Wednesday that the Ukrainian offensive had been halted in the border area.

But multiple pro-Russian military bloggers said the battles continued into Thursday and that civilians were being evacuated.

"Sudzha is basically lost to us. And this is an important logistics hub," said Yuri Podolyaka, a popular Ukrainian-born pro-Russian military blogger, adding that Ukrainian forces were pushing north towards Lgov.

"In general, the situation is difficult and continues to deteriorate, despite the fact that the pace of the Ukrainian offensive has noticeably dropped."

The Ukrainian army has remained silent on the Kursk offensive. Some Russian bloggers criticised the state of border defence in the Kursk region, saying that it had been far too easy for Ukrainian forces to slice through them.

Critical juncture

The battles around Sudzha come at a crucial juncture in the conflict, the biggest land war in Europe since World War Two. Kyiv is concerned that U.S. support could drop off if Republican Donald Trump wins the November presidential election. Trump has said he would end the war, and both Russia and Ukraine are keen to gain the strongest possible bargaining position on the battlefield.

Ukraine wants to pin down Russian forces, which control 18% of its territory, though the strategic significance of the border offensive was not immediately clear.

Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said the Ukrainian attack was an attempt to force Russia to divert resources from the front and to show the West that Ukraine could still fight. As a result of the Kursk attack, Medvedev said, Russia should expand its war aims to include taking all of Ukraine.

"From this moment on, the SVO (Special Military Operation) should acquire an openly extraterritorial character," Medvedev said, adding that Russian forces should go to Odesa, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Mykolayiv, Kyiv "and beyond".

"We will stop only when we consider it acceptable and profitable for ourselves."

Gas was still flowing through Sudzha via the Urengoy–Pomary–Uzhhorod pipeline which carried about 14.65 billion cubic metres of gas in 2023, about half of Russia's gas exports to Europe.

Russia's National Guard said it had beefed up security around the Kursk nuclear power station, which lies about 60 km northeast of the town.

Pentagon Refuses To Rule Out Strikes On Moscow In Shocking Exchange On Ukraine's Incursion Into Kursk

https://www.zerohedge.com/geop...ines-incursion-kursk

The Pentagon on Thursday was asked by a reporter during the daily briefing whether Ukraine forces' use of American weapons in its ongoing Kursk incursion is "consistent" with US policy of what Ukraine can and cannot do with US weapons. It has become clear that Ukrainian troops are currently using American weapons to attack Russian territory, troops, civilians, and infrastructure.

Spokeswoman Sabrina Singh answered without hesitation that "yes it is consistent with our policy" and explained that Washington has supported the need for "crossfire" from Ukraine back across the border onto Russian positions from which it is being attacked, even if that is on Russian territory. She framed what is happening in Russia's Kursk oblast—an offensive which has entered day four—as 'defensive' in nature.

Singh still tried to point out that it remains US policy for Ukraine to avoid striking deep into Russian territory using American arms; however, when pressed about the scenario of a direct attack on Moscow, she simply said: "I’m not going to put a specific range on it" and thus refused to rule it out. But she did caveat that "we still don't support long-range attacks into Russia." Singh additionally explained, "I'm not gonna draw a circular map for you here of where they can and cannot strike." The Kremlin is likely to remain unconvinced when hearing this clear escalation in rhetoric from the Pentagon where attacking the Russian capital is discussed, even if theoretically. Watch the full exchange related to the Kursk offensive below:



Needless to say we have entered incredibly dangerous times in this major proxy war when the Pentagon's daily press briefing is openly talking about strikes on Moscow.

The Ukrainian cross-border offensive, which may have involved up to 1,000 men, began early Tuesday morning and was led by fast moving armored vehicles, which were able to penetrate up to 10km into Russia. Moscow says that it has observed US-supplied equipment being utilized in the attack on Russian soil.

A prior Russian Defense Ministry (MoD) statement said, "Video monitoring data shows that Lancet loitering munitions destroyed a US-made Bradley infantry fighting vehicle, a Kazak armored vehicle, a Ukrainian armored personnel carrier and an infantry fighting vehicle in their firing positions." Newsweek also confirmed based on video evidence.

The MoD further said that dozens of armored vehicles breached the border and were operating inside Russia amid a major response to push out the invaders which has included airpower.

As of Friday, the fighting in Kursk is in its fourth day, which is unprecedented for a Ukrainian military incursion inside Russia. Ukraine has simultaneously stepped up its cross-border drone attacks, reportedly hitting an important military airfield in the Lepetsk region, impacting a facility where glide-bombs are stored. According to the latest:

Ukrainian drones struck a key military airfield in Russia's Lipetsk region, as Kyiv continues its largest offensive on Russian soil since the start of the war.

Ukrainian forces targeted the airfield in Lipetsk — roughly 300 kilometers (186 miles) from the border with Ukraine — on Thursday night, hitting warehouses and a number of unspecified objects in the vicinity of the airport, Ukraine's General Staff of Command said in a Google-translated Telegram post.

Earlier in the week, the Ukrainian offensive led to the evacuation of thousands of people and a state of emergency being announced in Kursk.

The timing of this high-risk assault is interesting, happening at a time where Ukraine has been on a slow and steady retreat in the Donbass. Ukraine needed something 'big' to both distract Russia's military command from front line operations and as a blow to Moscow's morale.

And now Kiev is pressing the Biden White House to let it use ATACMS long-range missiles to strike deeper into Russia.

"This will give them the leverage they need for negotiations with Russia — this is what it’s all about," Mikhail Podoliak, a senior advisor to President Zelensky, told The Washington Post.

On Thursday, Zelensky himself had said Russia needs to "feel" the consequences of its invasion and war. "Russia brought the war to our land and should feel what it has done," he said.

It is now looking like Ukraine will actually seek to maintain hold over parts of Kursk Oblast, and its officials have dubiously claimed to have captured approximately 100 square kilometers of territory. Ukraine also says it has taken hundreds of Russian soldiers as prisoners.

According to The Washington post as well as Ukrainian media sources:

The Ukrainian leadership has approached the US for permission to use ATACMS to target Russian territory after the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) conducted an incursion into Russia’s Kursk Oblast. This could allow Kyiv to hold the territory they have pushed into, according to The Washington Post, citing an anonymous advisor to President Volodymyr Zelensky.

The long-range missiles are planned to be used to strike Russian military airfields from which Russian aircraft conduct bombing raids on Ukrainian positions. According to the source, such a political decision would help the AFU maintain control over parts of the Kursk Oblast.

Based on the above-mentioned words of the Pentagon press secretary where she noticeably did not verbalize limits on striking Moscow, this potential greenlight from Washington to use ATACMS on Russian territory is looking more likely by the day.

President Putin will see this as the US much more directly entering the war, and has previously set firm red lines on such a scenario.

More at link

quote:

Originally posted by wcb6092:
Spokeswoman Sabrina Singh

Where's my sandwich, kitchen help?

Attacking Moscow? Fucking clowns. There's no way to take you seriously. If this administration had been in charge during WWII, we would have been screwed.

You want to attack, Moscow, Sabrina? Gear up and do it yourself, stupid.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:

quote:

Originally posted by wcb6092:
Spokeswoman Sabrina Singh

Where's my sandwich, kitchen help?

Attacking Moscow? Fucking clowns. There's no way to take you seriously. If this administration had been in charge during WWII, we would have been screwed.

You want to attack, Moscow, Sabrina? Gear up and do it yourself, stupid.

Why the pearl-clutching? Why is it a non-event when Moscow bombs Kyiv, but suddenly the mere idea of reciprocal strikes brings everybody to the brink of a stroke? By every legal
and moral measure Ukraine has every right to strike Moscow, in fact, Ukraine did strike Moscow several times in the past. Even the Kremlin proper.(And was shouted to stop by our panicky admin). No need to send Sabrina to the frontlines: the AFU has trained personnel to launch all strikes necessary to persuade Kremlin the war needs to stop and international order needs to be restored. The war has been dragging this long because of Potato's stupid prohibitions on hitting Pukin where it hurts and bringing the war to the population of his country. It could've been finished back in fall of 2022 when Red Army was being routed, but Potato decided to step on the brakes and wait for Pukin to want to negotiate. We kmow how that went... Only idiots give the enemy time and space to recover but Potato did exactly that. You are right that we would've been forked if we had this kind of weak and indecisive leadership in WWII.

quote:

Originally posted by echidna:
The war has been dragging this long because of Potato's stupid prohibitions on hitting Pukin where it hurts and bringing the war to the population of his country.

Oh? And the billions of dollars in aid and war materiel we've given Ukraine has nothing at all to do with the war dragging on this long?

quote:

Originally posted by echidna:
It could've been finished back in fall of 2022 when Red Army was being routed, but Potato decided to step on the brakes and wait for Pukin to want to negotiate. We kmow how that went...

Boris Johnson leaned on Zelensky and told him he wasn't going to negotiate with Putin. That happened. It isn't conjecture.

In case anyone is confused on where I stand on this whole thing: Fuck Ukraine, I'm tired of pissing away our tax dollars to a corrupt state. Russia can have them as far as I'm concerned. The loss of life could end tomorrow, but guys like you are arguing in favor of expanding the war. It's unbelievable.

quote:

Originally posted by echidna:
Why the pearl-clutching?

Are you referring to me?

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:

quote:

Originally posted by wcb6092:
Spokeswoman Sabrina Singh

Where's my sandwich, kitchen help?

Attacking Moscow? Fucking clowns. There's no way to take you seriously. If this administration had been in charge during WWII, we would have been screwed.

You want to attack, Moscow, Sabrina? Gear up and do it yourself, stupid.

Reminds me of the 70’s movie “Suppose they Gave a War and Nobody Came.” Need to tell these freakin’ gov’t people to cram it.

quote:

Originally posted by echidna:

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:

quote:

Originally posted by wcb6092:
Spokeswoman Sabrina Singh

Where's my sandwich, kitchen help?

Attacking Moscow? Fucking clowns. There's no way to take you seriously. If this administration had been in charge during WWII, we would have been screwed.

You want to attack, Moscow, Sabrina? Gear up and do it yourself, stupid.

Why the pearl-clutching? Why is it a non-event when Moscow bombs Kyiv, but suddenly the mere idea of reciprocal strikes brings everybody to the brink of a stroke? By every legal
and moral measure Ukraine has every right to strike Moscow….

This here is everything wrong with US policy.

I don’t give a shit about who has what “legal and moral” measure. So dumb to frame it that way. I care about what’s best for AMERICA. Sending weapons that a tyrant regime (UKR) uses to strike another tyrant regime (RUS) who has a nuclear arsenal is NOT in US interests because it exposes us to significant risk. That’s why this is dumb. We’re playing with fire for what? What do we gain from this? We are culpable for what UKR does; I know Russia started it but I don’t care. I care about our nation and our nation is now exposed to increased risk for no gain.

I'll have an answer from you.

I'll ask again- were you referring to me?

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:

quote:

Originally posted by wcb6092:
Spokeswoman Sabrina Singh

Where's my sandwich, kitchen help?

Attacking Moscow? Fucking clowns. There's no way to take you seriously. If this administration had been in charge during WWII, we would have been screwed.

You want to attack, Moscow, Sabrina? Gear up and do it yourself, stupid.

At the same time, DementiaJoe, the Hyena, and the rest of their Congress of Louts vehemently oppose Israel's military response targeting Islamofascist terrorist groups operating within Gaza, Iran, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank, and Yemen.

Brilliant, people. Just fucking brilliant.

The bloodlust in this country to kill Russians is unexplainable. The desire to keep the slaughter going defies all logic and reason. I've given up on this issue. It's a regional conflict that Ukraine can't actually win. Russia will always be their neighbor, and this can only be resolved through negotiations. Fucking ground hog day in this war and Ukraine is always just about to really take it to the dirty Russians.

Imagine how many lives, billions of dollars, and cities would have been spared had Ukraine simply given Putin what he wanted. Zelensky's bloodlust and Biden's enabling have brought us to this point.

Incursion into Russia’s Kursk region: A risky gamble for Ukraine?

https://www.france24.com/en/eu...y-gamble-for-ukraine

Russia on Friday raised the emergency level in the Kursk region to “federal” as Ukraine pressed on with a major cross-border incursion. Launched on Tuesday, Kyiv’s offensive is the most significant attack on enemy soil since the Ukraine war started in 2022 and could prove to be either very profitable or very costly.

Russia declared a "federal-level" emergency in the Kursk region bordering Ukraine on Friday and rushed reinforcements to the area as Kyiv pressed on with a major cross-border incursion. The brazen offensive is the most significant Ukrainian attack on Russian soil since the start of Moscow's full-scale invasion, and could prove to be either very profitable for Kyiv or very costly.

Ukraine’s army was battling Russian forces behind enemy lines for a fourth day on Friday, after its troops stormed across the border in a surprise attack on Tuesday.

While Kyiv has not officially taken responsibility for the attack, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Thursday that Russia needed to "feel" the consequences of its ongoing war in Ukraine.

Russia declared a state of emergency in the border region of Kursk Wednesday and evacuated thousands of residents, with President Vladimir Putin describing the attack as a “large-scale provocation”.

Large-scale operation

More than one thousand soldiers along with some thirty tanks and armoured vehicles from Ukraine's Sumy region north of Kharkiv are thought to have crossed the border into Russia’s Kursk region on Tuesday.

“Ukraine is said to have sent two brigades – including one mechanised – with special forces, anti-air defence and drone pilots", said Huseyn Aliyev, a senior lecturer in Central and East European Studies at the University of Glasgow.

Ukrainian troops have made rapid advances over the past few days, reportedly penetrating as far as 35 kilometres into Russian territory, according to the independent US-based Institute for the Study of War.

While pro-Ukrainian militias made up of Russian nationals opposed to Putin, such as the Freedom of Russia Legion, have staged several cross-border raids in the past, this is the first offensive involving Ukrainian troops.

“It's the first time Ukrainian ground troops have entered Russian soil since the war began,” said Glen Grant, a senior defence expert at the Baltic Security Foundation.

"It's significant because [Ukraine’s incursion] represents the most substantial co-ordinated attack into Russian territory," added Will Kingston-Cox, Russia specialist at the International Team for the Study of Security Verona.

Risky gamble

Kyiv’s cross-border attack on Russia has come as a surprise to many, with the Ukrainian army reportedly suffering from a shortage of personnel and ammunition.

"Let's be honest, no one knows why they did it,” Grant said.

“It's both unusual and unexpected given that Zelensky is always claiming he doesn't have enough men and weapons to defend the front line," Aliyev added.

Kyiv's move could be regarded as a “pre-emptive attack” designed to prevent a Russian offensive into Ukraine's Sumy regime, said Frank Ledwidge, a senior lecturer and military analyst at the University of Portsmouth.

“It's risky to do this, but from a military point of view it makes sense,” he added.

Ukrainian presidential advisor Mykhailo Podolyak appeared to give another explanation on Wednesday by arguing that operations in “Russian border regions” would impact Russian society and benefit Kyiv in future talks with Moscow, online news outlet The Kyiv Independent reported.

"Ukraine is demonstrating its ability to strike into Russian territory with [its] regular army and not just holding its positions on the front line," said Kingston-Cox. "That could have a strong psychological impact on Russia, where people may start saying, 'How are we supposed to take territory if we're not able to defend our own?'"

Meanwhile, Kyiv’s offensive may also help boost morale among Ukrainians.

“Ukraine has had no major victory since retaking Kherson (in November 2022). It could be an attempt by the Ukrainian government to show some sort of victory or success,” Aliyev said.

In that respect, Ukraine successfully making inroads across the border, and appearing to catch the Russians unawares, can be seen as a victory in and of itself, he added.

Sluggish Russian response

Moscow has come under fire for its slow response to the Ukrainian attack – not least because Russian forces had supposedly strengthened their defensive lines in the wake of earlier incursions in the Belgorod region last year.

A prominent Kremlin-affiliated military blogger claimed that Russian forces repeatedly warned their high command about Ukrainian forces massing along the border with Kursk region, but that the Russian command failed to prepare for a potential invasion, the Institute for the Study of War said in its latest update.

Communication problems within the Russian military may have been responsible for the sluggish response, Grant said, adding: "No one wants to tell bad new to the boss, so they are lying and eventually when the truth comes out, it's already quite late. I don't even believe Putin really knows what's going on."

Kingston-Cox, however, suggested that Russian authorities may have been aware of Ukraine’s pending raid and used it to their advantage.

“Putin’s accusation of a large-scale provocation is aimed at rallying support. It is probable that the Russians had intelligence of an incursion into Kursk,” Kingston-Cox said, adding that Russian authorities hoped to rally public opinion against Ukraine.

Either way, it is unlikely that Ukraine will press on with the offensive much longer.

"It's very risky and Ukraine knows there is a price to pay: Russia will launch counter attacks, and no one knows whether the [Ukrainian] troops will be able to hold,” Ledwidge said.

Moreover, Ukraine's limited resources mean it cannot afford to fight on a new front within Russian territory.

"It's quite risky to put too many resources into this offensive," said Aliyev, noting that the seasoned soldiers deployed in Kursk "could be used to reinforce the Donbas frontline, where Russia is gaining some ground".

echidna, you have 24 hours. Actually, let's call it 24:15. 8 PM Eastern tomorrow night.

Moderated Status, thirty days, echidna, and you will refrain from ever again speaking that way to me. I don't have to put up with that, especially from someone with a handful of posts in this forum.

Next time is the last time

Wall Street Journal:

As Ukraine Invades Russia, Kyiv’s Troops Are in Trouble on the Eastern Front

https://archive.ph/XWery#selection-2171.0-2171.76


NEAR KRASNOHORIVKA, Ukraine—As Ukrainian troops poured into Russia’s Kursk region last week, five Russian assault troops on motorbikes were zipping toward Ukraine’s front line hundreds of miles to the east.

Two of the bikers were gunned down. Another turned back and fled. But the last two escaped into the trees, looking for a place to hunker down and await reinforcements.

This is one of the tactics Russia is using to take advantage of its vastly larger number of troops in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, Russia’s primary target and the site of intensified assaults this week despite Ukraine’s incursion into Russia. Ukraine’s threadbare troops are struggling to hold them back.

Ukraine’s Kursk operation has embarrassed Russian President Vladimir Putin and given Kyiv the tactical initiative in one area for the first time in nearly a year. But it transferred troops and weapons from its already-creaking front lines to pull it off, a gamble that risks making a bad situation worse.

“We don’t have enough people to do our job properly,” said the commander of the 21st Battalion of the Separate Presidential Brigade, which faced the Russian assault last week at the edge of the contested town of Krasnohorivka.

Russian forces have gained territory at a faster rate this summer than at any point since the first weeks of the war and are now pushing toward the logistical hub of Pokrovsk. For Ukraine, losing Pokrovsk would sever a vital artery supplying troops fighting to the northeast, including in the city of Chasiv Yar, which lies on heights that hold the key to controlling the region. On Thursday, officials in Pokrovsk began urging civilians to evacuate.

U.S. officials said Tuesday that Russia was beginning to move troops out of Ukraine in response to the Kursk incursion, but they didn’t give numbers or say what regions they were coming from. Ukraine, meanwhile, is also redeploying troops from the eastern front to Kursk, leaving units here even more stretched.

Commanders in the east describe a situation that has grown more punishing through the summer—with no sign that Russian forces are easing up since the Kursk incursion began. Despite the approval of another U.S. military aid package in April, they remain desperately low on artillery ammunition: Russia has a 10-to-1 advantage in artillery fire in some areas. In addition, the Russians are neutralizing Ukrainian drones with electronic jammers.

But the biggest factor, officers say, is the lack of manpower.

“If we’re supposed to have five or six people in a position, we’ll have two or three,” said a 45-year-old army major who has been stationed in the Chasiv Yar area for the past two months. He said they were so short-handed that cooks, mechanics and other rear personnel were being deployed to trenches. “It’s a matter of time before the enemy finds a weak spot.”

The commander of the 21st Battalion, who goes by the call sign Kucher, said that when his men arrived in the Krasnohorivka area in the spring, they had roughly the same number of men as the Russians.

Now, he said, the Russians have a manpower advantage of around five to one. Only about 20% of the casualties his battalion takes are replaced by new recruits, and the mobilized men who arrive tend to be older than those who volunteered at the start of the war. As in other brigades, the average age of infantrymen has ticked up over 40.

Exhausted soldiers are spending longer in the trenches, Kucher said, because there are no fresh troops to replace them.

Several months ago, he sent one of his platoon commanders, who goes by Zhak, to replace an exhausted soldier in a trench for a week.

Zhak returned in late July, after spending 50 days there. Three attempts at troop rotations had to be abandoned when Russian attacks began. Another soldier spent 105 days in the same trench and now is in the hospital recovering.

Zhak, who is 46 years old, got straight back to work.

“The situation doesn’t allow me to even ask for days off—I’d feel bad leaving,” he said. “Once it stabilizes, I’ll ask for a break.”

The Russian assaults on motorbikes—which have become common up and down the eastern front this summer—make use of Moscow’s numerical advantage. The salvos are costly—most, or all, of the bikers are usually killed—but they help Russian forces locate Ukraine’s positions and secure a toehold that can be gradually reinforced.

Sitting in a 21st Battalion command bunker outside Krasnohorivka last week, a Wall Street Journal reporter watched a live drone feed as the five-bike assault unfolded. Drone teams began searching for the two who escaped. They quickly spotted one sheltering in the ruins of a house, then killed him with an explosive drone.

But they couldn’t find the last Russian, which posed a problem. If even one Russian survived, he could tell his colleagues exactly where the Ukrainians were located, then the Russians would shell those positions.

“We’ve heard them on the radio saying, ‘The enemy is firing from there, there, there,’” Fantom, the 28-year-old commander of the 21st Battalion’s mortar battery, said from the command post. “The goal is to see where our troops are, then hit us with artillery or mortars or drones…That’s why it’s always better to kill all the witnesses.”

Eventually, a drone pilot said he had spotted the last Russian biker hiding under a burned-out car. Still, no one fired a mortar at him.

“If we had unlimited numbers, we’d try to hit the car,” said one soldier watching the live feed at the command post. “But we don’t have as much ammunition as we’d like. We can’t use a mortar to kill only one person.”

Other brigades in the east complained of similar ammunition shortages.

“We have orders only to shoot at stationary targets,” said Sifonesco, the 46-year-old commander of an artillery-reconnaissance unit working near Pokrovsk. “We have to wait for a tank to come to a stop before we can try to hit it.”

As in other brigades, Sifonesco said his unit is relying on explosive drones to make up for the artillery shortage. But the drones are growing less effective, he said, because Russian forces have increased their use of electronic jammers, which cut communication between the drones and their pilots. Now, only about half of the drones are reaching their targets.

“The Russians have more everything than us—more people, more guns, more shells, more ammunition,” Sifonesco said. “In the end, it makes us withdraw.”

Rob Lee, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, said that Ukraine’s manpower shortage was a hangover from last summer’s failed offensive, when Kyiv took massive casualties. The situation should improve by next year, he said, when men who are now being drafted would be trained and ready to join the fight. In addition, Western production of artillery ammunition should increase by the end of this year.

“The fundamental issue is Ukraine doesn’t have enough reserves,” Lee said. “They don’t have enough units to reinforce everywhere.”

Sending troops to Kursk, then, means taking them away from the Donetsk region. Troops in the east said they loved seeing the videos of Ukraine hitting Russian columns, but they weren’t yet convinced that sending Ukrainian troops into Russia would pay off.

“We could really use 1,000 men here,” Kucher said.

France24- Pro Ukrainian


Why Ukraine’s Kursk offensive has failed to distract Russia from Donbas push

https://www.france24.com/en/eu...sia-from-donbas-push

Russian troops are inching ever close to Ukraine’s eastern city of Pokrovsk, a vital logistical hub for Kyiv’s outgunned and outnumbered forces, leading some analysts to question the wisdom of a Ukrainian lightning offensive on Russian soil that was intended to distract Moscow from its Donbas push.

The Ukrainian army remains in control of more than 1,000 square kilometres of land in Russia’s Kursk region, almost a month into a brazen cross-border incursion that offered Kyiv’s forces a much-needed morale boost – and dealt Russian President Vladimir Putin a humiliating blow.

Along eastern Ukraine’s sprawling front line, however, the Russian army has been notching up territorial gains, cutting deeper towards the city of Pokrovsk in Donetsk province, a crucial supply and reinforcement hub for Ukraine’s frontline troops, and claiming the capture of a nearby village on Wednesday.

Moscow’s troops have moved to within 10 kilometres of the strategic city, the UK’s military intelligence reported on Monday as Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky conceded that the situation on the ground was “difficult”.

“Russian goals have not changed,” Zelensky told reporters, noting that the assault on Pokrovsk began long before Ukraine’s Kursk offensive. To some, his words amounted to an admission that Kyiv had failed to alter Moscow’s goals.

In the immediate aftermath of Ukraine’s brazen cross-border offensive, military experts quizzed by FRANCE 24 agreed that the operation’s primary aim appeared to be the redeployment of Russian troops engaged in the Donbas.

In that respect, Ukraine’s “provocation” has failed, Putin told Russian media on Monday, boasting that Moscow’s forces were advancing in the Donbas at the fastest pace “in a long time”.

While the Kursk offensive did force Russia to redeploy troops from parts of the front line, analysts caution, those movements did not affect the battle for Pokrovsk.

In fact, “Russian operations are now solely concentrated in the Pokrovsk region,” said Gustav Gressel, a Ukraine war analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations, adding that Moscow’s forces were “kind of freezing other fronts”.

Before the Kursk offensive, “the Russians were advancing on seven fronts in the Donbas", added Huseyn Aliyev, a Ukraine war expert at the University of Glasgow. “And now it’s only Pokrovsk, while some troops elsewhere are being redeployed to Kursk.”

‘Strategically misguided’

Such manoeuvres suggest there has indeed been a “Kursk effect” in the Donbas. The trouble for Kyiv is that the effect is not being felt where it matters most.

Indeed, a Russian breakthrough in Pokrovsk “could force a broader Ukrainian retreat in the Donetsk region", warned Will Kingston-Cox, a Russia expert at the International Team for the Study of Security (ITSS) Verona, such is the town’s strategic importance.

A transport hub with a pre-war population of 50,000, many of whom have now fled, Pokrovsk is “an important supply hub, with several roads and rail lines converging there", said Veronika Poniscjakova, an international security expert at the University of Portsmouth who is closely monitoring the war in Ukraine.

If the city falls, “the Russians will have an open road to Kramatorsk and Sloviansk", added Aliyev, for whom Ukraine had virtually no chance of stopping Moscow’s advance in Pokrovsk region.

In fact, the invading army may not even need to occupy Pokrovsk to wreak havoc on Ukraine’s supply chain and deal a severe blow to its forces, argued Gressel.

“They don’t have to conquer the city physically to make logistics complicated for Ukraine,” he said. “As long as they go close enough to the city.”

Gressel noted that Ukraine’s lightning attack in Kursk region had drawn Kyiv’s “most mobile reserves” away from the Donbas, where they may have been better suited to defensive operations requiring an ability to rapidly fall back and regroup.

In that respect, “the Kursk incursion appears to have been strategically misguided”, said Kingston-Cox, describing the operation as a “symbolic victory” that has proved to be “overoptimistic” in terms of its desired impact on the Donbas.

Bargaining chip

Others have cast doubt on Ukraine’s ability to stem the Russian advance on Pokrovsk even if it hadn’t committed some of its best troops to the Kursk advance.

“I don’t think those units would have been capable of altering the balance of forces in the Donbas,” said military analyst Sim Tack, who has monitored the conflict since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Ukraine’s army leadership may have reasoned that “its troops had a better chance of securing victory in Kursk region than halting the Russian advance in Donbas", added Aliyev.

Assessing the success or failure of Ukraine’s surprise offensive should not be based solely on its repercussions on the eastern front, argued Tack, for whom the control of Russian territory gives Kyiv a “bargaining chip” for future negotiations.

Zelensky stated during an interview with NBC on Tuesday that Ukrainian forces were “conceptually” planning to hold territory in Kursk for an unspecified period of time, reiterating that the incursion was part of Ukraine’s “victory plan” to end the war on just terms and bring Russia to the negotiating table.

Whether that bargaining chip has any real value remains in doubt, cautioned Poniscjakova, noting that Putin has made clear his priority is completing the annexation of Ukraine’s Donetsk province, which Moscow claims as its own.

Putin has notably played down the significance of Ukraine’s incursion, the first on Russian soil since World War II, appearing in no rush to chase out the intruders while his forces press on with their assaults in eastern Ukraine.

His stance sends a message both to his domestic audience and to Kyiv, minimising the Russian army’s setbacks at home and stressing that Moscow will not give up on its plans for territorial conquest in Ukraine.

“By focusing on Donbas, Russia is making clear that it is not willing to make a lot of concessions in exchange for Kursk,” said Kingston-Cox. “That’s because Donetsk region is the main objective.”