Yep, virtually all show with little “go”. Just like Ukraine’s Kursk disaster which is in its death throes now, and I do mean death throes.
It was obvious a week ago to anyone watching closely that the Ukrainians’ days in Kursk were numbered — as in you could count them on your fingers, no toes needed. The pause in military aid and intelligence sharing had nothing to do with the Russian successes. It was already in the pipeline (grin). But that won’t stop the usual suspects from blaming it all on Trump.
We all succumb to wanting to play armchair general at times, and the armchair general in me has been pondering Kursk since the beginning.
My first thought was “big whoop, they got a tiny slice of the backend of nowhere” and my second thought was “the flies have captured the flypaper.”
So, I thought, if I were a Russian general, I’d let the flies sit on their sticky paper while picking them off, and meanwhile they’re tied up guarding the backend of nowhere instead of fighting at the front. Win win. The only downside is giving them time to dig in, which will make them harder to dislodge when the time comes.
And, I thought, if I were a Ukrainian general and had been foolish enough to go there in the first place, I’d retreat from Kursk after seeing that it was not accomplishing any concrete objectives and just say “Yay, that was fun! We proved we could invade Russia! Now back to our regularly scheduled war on the frontlines.”
Supposedly, the Kursk incursion was aimed at drawing Russian troops away from the frontlines, but that didn’t happen. Some speculated they were aiming the Kursk nuclear plant but didn’t manage to make it that far. All that was left was PR and “morale boost” — neither worth Ukraine’s best soldiers and best Western equipment.
Yet, they kept feeding their best military units into Kursk to replace all the losses — over and over and over again. To be shot like fish in a barrel. All the while, the Ukrainians were suffering severe manpower shortages along the front, allowing gaps to form in crucial lines, and sending in untrained conscripts. It was insane, in my eyes.
There have been persistent rumors the Kursk thing was a British Idea. The longer it went on, the more I came to think the rumors might be true. A numpty Brit idea. Tragic for all the families of the soldiers lost there, who died for what? A PR stunt that is now spectacularly failing?