Posted on 08/28/2024 4:21:09 AM PDT by jacknhoo
On Aug. 6, Ukrainian mechanized forces, likely a division strong, invaded Russia’s Kursk Oblast. In the process, Kyiv had recaptured the battlefield initiative, undermined the narrative that it was doomed to surrender, and caused the Kremlin obvious political embarrassment. The Ukrainian high command claims that the incursion has resulted in the capture of 74 settlements and the occupation of 390 square miles of Russian territory—more than double what the Russians concede. Moscow was forced to evacuate nearly 200,000 civilians from the Kursk and Belgorod regions, as it brought in reserves and heavy weaponry, while the Russian air force began striking the Ukrainian forces in Kursk and across the border in the Sumy Oblast. While the Ukrainian military claimed on Tuesday that it has gained an additional 15 square miles, the Russians said they have blocked any further advance.
Whatever its strategic significance turns out to be, the Ukrainians maintain they were sending a signal to the Kremlin as well as to the White House that Kyiv was finished operating under self-defeating constraints and that it would now probe red lines that had been set out by both powers. Kyiv has long been frustrated at being provided with just enough support from Washington in order to not lose—but not enough to overcome the numerically superior and better financed Russian army. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has expressed that frustration publicly, stating that “our partners are afraid of Russia losing the war.”
Unlike last summer’s failed counteroffensive in Kharkiv, Ukraine launched the Kursk operation without first informing Washington of its plans. In fact, Zelenskyy waited a week to break the remarkable operational secrecy that had enveloped the operation.
Ukraine’s decision to proceed came exactly a week after Israel had carried out a pair of high-profile assassinations deep in enemy territory.
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Email Print Link Copied link https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/ukraine-offensive-kursk-russia What changed in July is that the Ukrainians, like other embattled U.S. allies, were faced with a new opportunity in Washington: The cognitively impaired president had been forced out of his reelection bid in favor of his vice president, who was now out on the campaign trail, three months before the election. With this emergent power vacuum at the White House, the Ukrainians decided to bypass both the deposed occupant of the White House as well as the staff of his hypercautious National Security Council, instead of slowly bleeding to death under rules guaranteed to produce slow-motion defeat.
“The United States government currently has no strategy for Ukraine. Zero. None at all,” a former high-ranking Ukrainian intelligence and national security official told Tablet. “That fact is apparent to the current Ukrainian government. The political decision and the timing chosen to go into Kursk were made at the political level by the Zelenskyy administration at the request of the army command. Which wanted to take the initiative.” The former intelligence official added, “This is war, and I cannot recall an example, any time in history, of a war being won while commanders were unable to make their own decisions and to take on their own responsibilities.”
The Ukrainians had planned this type of operation for a long time—reports of Kyiv’s plots to launch incursions into Russia go back to early 2023. Tellingly, however, the decision to proceed came exactly a week after Israel had carried out a pair of high-profile assassinations deep in enemy territory. On July 31, the Israelis took out Hamas’ former chief Ismail Haniyeh in a Tehran guesthouse during the inauguration ceremony of the new Iranian president. The day before, they had eliminated the top Hezbollah military commander, Fuad Shukr, in the heart of the group’s stronghold in Beirut.
Kyiv observed carefully how Israel conducted its strikes immediately after Prime Minister Netanyahu returned from a triumphant speech before the U.S. Congress. In fact, earlier this week the chair of the Ukrainian Parliamentary Committee on National Security and Defense, Roman Kostenko, explicitly referenced the Israeli example in a televised interview. “So Israel announced that they would take the advice of their partners very seriously but would afterward make their own decisions in the best interest of their own national security. I think that we can simply mirror that approach in our own case.”
There are limits to the analogy with Israel, which is fighting a much weaker terror group in an infinitely smaller territory the borders of which Jerusalem controls entirely. Nevertheless, Ukraine seeks to leverage the optics of turning the tables on the Russians to force the Americans to back a fait accompli on the battlefield. While the motivation behind the Ukrainian decision is clear, less so is its ultimate objective. It is far too early to draw serious assessments of Ukraine’s battlefield successes. Caught off guard, the Russians are currently on their back foot. But they may very well regroup, counterattack and drive out the Ukrainian forces. Should the Russians succeed in recapturing the entirety of the occupied Russian territory, before the Ukrainians are able to leverage their gains, the Ukrainian gamble could prove to have been a costly waste of scarce resources and manpower. It is also possible that this assault is merely a preamble or diversion for another forthcoming strike in a different theater of operations.
That said, there is no denying that the current incursion into Kursk is substantively and qualitatively different from Ukraine’s earlier, limited raids into Russia’s Belgorod region. Last year’s lightning raids and temporary raising of Ukrainian flags over a few Russian border villages were conducted using units of exiled Russian defectors to offer a modicum of deniability. The current offensive has seen detachments of elite, battle-hardened Ukrainian battalions deployed, backed by air power, and with the mechanized Ukrainian force seemingly attempting a blitz to take as much territory and as many targets of opportunity as possible: railroad hubs, energy infrastructure such as the Sudzha gas hub currently in the Ukrainian forces’ hands, and possibly the local nuclear power plant. Signaling their intention to dig in, the commander of the Ukrainian Ground Forces, Oleksandr Syrskyi, announced last Thursday that Kyiv had set up a military commandant’s office in the parts of the Kursk region under its control.
The Ukrainians hoped the Kursk operation would challenge the consensus that they could not break out of a stalemate. While Kyiv intended to get the Russians to transfer some units out of front-line positions in order to make them defend their own territory and reduce pressure along the front, the number of Russian battalions likely to have been rotated out from the front lines appears to be less than what the Ukrainian general staff would have hoped for. Much of the defense of Kursk Oblast seems to be conducted by ad hoc Russian forces cobbled together from a combination of conscripts, interior ministry troops, border guards, Chechen units, national guard, and units already stationed inside the country. Furthermore, the Ukrainians also had to shift their own resources for the Kursk operation, which led to Russian gains around, and the likely fall of, the city of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk Oblast.
One effect that the operation has definitely had is lifting the stoic but somewhat depressed public mood, which is now at its highest point since the start of the successful Kherson counteroffensive two years ago. The Ukrainians have long desired to bring the consequences of the war home to the Russian citizens who are perfectly willing to countenance the war so long as it does not inconvenience them directly. Moreover, Kyiv hopes to showcase its capacity to deploy Western arms (including the newly arrived American F-16 fighter jets) in order to create the impression that it is more than just a romantic lost cause. Introducing a new equation that ostensibly exposes the limits of the Russian military and forces a stalemate of sorts would be the best outcome Kyiv could hope for with this operation, as both sides wait to see the results of the November election in the United States.
Putin seems to understand the Ukrainian offensive as a negotiating ploy. On Monday, he said that Kyiv, “with the help of its Western masters,” was trying to improve its negotiating position”—though the Russian offer remains a set of nonnegotiable demands (which include Ukraine giving up five provinces to Russia) and a Ukrainian surrender.
All the Russian rhetoric about Kyiv’s “Western masters” notwithstanding, the White House and the Pentagon were also caught off guard. White House spokesman John Kirby admitted that the U.S. was still trying to gain a better understanding of what Ukraine is doing with its Kursk incursion, quickly adding that “There’s been no changes in our policy approaches,” with respect to U.S. weapons and how they’re used, stating that the Ukrainians were still using the weapons “in an area where we had said before that they could use U.S. weapons for cross-border strikes.”
Kyiv’s gambit, therefore, rests on its ability to show Washington that it not only can mount meaningful military maneuvers, but that it can do so inside Russia, while also maintaining U.S. buy-in and support. A meme circulating over Ukrainian social media captured this tightrope walk: “If the United States will only let you use ATACMS at a certain distance from the border, you should simply move the border!”
For now, the Pentagon has signaled its approval by releasing a previously planned $125 million tranche of new munitions and air defense materials several days after Kyiv initiated the Kursk operation.
The Ukrainians demonstrated remarkable operational discipline in preparing this offensive—ordinary soldiers were reportedly only informed of the battle plans the day before they were sent over the Russian border. Keeping the Americans in the dark was also key to keeping the Russian intelligence services and army from being able to prepare. “We have learned some very hard lessons from the events of the previous counteroffensive,” a highly placed member of Zelenskyy’s team informed Tablet. “Last summer we told everyone what we were going to do and we all know how that turned out. Everyone knew what we were going to do and in which location we intended to strike. There is definitely something to be learned from the Israeli example of acting first and only later explaining what you are doing.”
A senior member of the British government who is involved at the highest levels of shaping British policy toward Kyiv has informed Tablet that he was pleased with the start of the operation, since the more careful American approach had not been working for Kyiv. “The Ukrainians had to change the dynamics of the war quickly or to suffer the consequences and they are now done fighting with one hand tied behind their back. So we now have the spectacle of the Russian air force bombing their own cities,” he told Tablet with bemusement. “The British have a very different approach to military strategy in which attack is the best form of defense.”
All the Ukrainian officials that Tablet spoke with expressed cautious optimism over the outcome of the incursion, despite the inherent risks of such an operation turning out badly and large numbers of elite Ukrainian troops dying for no discernible strategic battlefield purpose. The highly placed member of the Zelenskyy team was philosophical about the possibility of bad outcomes: “We will see how it will all turn out in the long run. But for now we really needed this victory. We really, really needed a bit of peremoha, or victory. People were really starting to lose their nerve.”
More importantly, the official was also confident that the Americans would not pull back support in the aftermath of the Ukrainian incursion. “We have just received the latest aid package from Washington, which represents a de facto legitimization,” he underlined. “The lesson here is that you should just behave in the way that the Americans do themselves. You should do what the Americans themselves do. Not what they tell you to do.”
"What changed in July is that the Ukrainians, like other embattled U.S. allies, were faced with a new opportunity in Washington: The cognitively impaired president had been forced out of his reelection bid in favor of his vice president, who was now out on the campaign trail, three months before the election. With this emergent power vacuum at the White House, the Ukrainians decided to bypass both the deposed occupant of the White House as well as the staff of his hypercautious National Security Council, instead of slowly bleeding to death under rules guaranteed to produce slow-motion defeat."
The world is taking advantage of the vacuum, ever since the 2020 election was stolen.
The overall expeditionary nature of this conflict for both sides will not end well.
Very foolish behavior, too much bluster, and too much blood has spilled. Impaling younger generations on each others weaponry will ultimately lead to nothing but a senseless waste.
Yep, the Ukrainians used their extensive satellite assets, world-wide communications assets, and God knows what else to effectively pick the spot, the timing, and the routes of the attack to be exactly where the main Russian army was not. They also secretly moved half of their Western weapons 500 miles to the west and hid them in the woods without being detected by anyone in the US, plus several dozen (or maybe hundreds) of US and other Western soldiers to operate those systems by telling them they were in Odessa or something...
...and the US never had a clue. Yep.
Yep.
Too much to read. Did they use our weapons? It might be the timing. Trump can’t arrive fast enough. Russia needs him more than Zelensky.
Review
Of course NATO does not want either side to win. They are making too much money from this war.
Besides, NATO has not won a war in its entire existence. The US has not won a war since the 1940s.
Everything has been half measures, mixed results or withdrawals that result in going back years later (Iraq).
The sad truth is that the greatest superpower in the world is incapable of decisive victory, which should be the objective if a nation decides to deploy forces into combat.
All BS. The US/NATO run this proxy war. Zelensky does what he is told. Biden is oblivious to what is going on in Ukraine and elsewhere. The same cabal that has been running the US since 2021 runs the war in Ukraine. There is no power vacuum.
Now that the war is going badly, the US is trying to distance itself from the results. It is similar the recent revelation that Ukraine was solely responsible for blowing up the Nordstream pipelines. Deep State is manipulating us with disinformation and gaslighting. They want us to believe that Zelensky has gone rogue.
The stage is being set for some sort of negotiated settlement or ceasefire before Nov 5. Or at least the removal of Zelensky. Ukraine has become a growing liability for the Dems. It reminds me of Carter and our hostages in Iran. Everyone knew that if Reagan was elected, the hostage crisis would be over. If Trump is elected, the war in Ukraine will end thru a negotiated settlement. Russia, Ukraine, and the rest of NATO know it. The Ukrainian incursion into Russia was just to get leverage in the coming negotiations. It is not working hence the US distancing itself from the results.
I do not believe that Ukes acted without US approval. The b_tards want a 3rd WW.
We have NO business there and NATO is incapable of winning a war without USA.
If the internal and external Traitors to the USA were not in power. None of this would have happened.
The globalist pukes internal and external can go to Hell.
For the record........ what is a “globalist” you so fervently eschew?
People who support the Cabal behind the Great Reset and related crap. It is all about great wealth to them.
☭Dem’s, Socialists, Communists, Fascists, Corpratists, WEF, World Bank, NATO leaders, Islamists, etc.
There is a vast pool who wish the USA to FALL.
It is out duty to prevent that.
Everything about senile Joe’s Ukie war stinks, everything. Vegetable Head Joe and our Congress owns this debacle- not one learned from Senile Joe’s Afghanistan debacle, this Ukie one signals our downfall, as we are witnessing.
Don’t blame them. If they know US support is going to dry up and that they will be forced to “negotiate” with Putin they are going to need leverage to get their own territory back.
Lets get real. If there was a raging war in Ukraine and Russia there would be wall to wall coverage on the nightly news with live action views. Journalists would be embedded and we would have play by play yet none of this is happening. This is all gaslighting to distract from what is going on here at home.
“And Moscow did not use its “extensive satellite assets, world-wide communications assets, and God knows what else to effectively pick the spot”.”
Good point - sounds like a trap.
Just for fun, look at this massive invasion on a map, then zoom out. It’s a tiny meaningless move. And they’ll be paying for it. It’s an amateur PR stunt last gasp with no air support.
“The current offensive has seen detachments of elite, battle-hardened Ukrainian battalions deployed, backed by air power, ”
Really now? I haven’t seen any stories of Ukrainian Air Force operating in Russia in support of this border crossing. And also, you have to be a special kind of stupid to think the United States didn’t know about this. We are in the BRITs were eyeballs deep in the planning and intelligence of it. The idea that America knew nothing about it is just a plausible deniability game.
I think it’s silly to pretend that DC and London were not fully in the loop.
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