The Ukrainian military’s Kursk Region incursion was a high-stakes gambit aimed at forcing Russia to divert troops from a key sector of the front line, but Moscow didn’t take the bait, Ukraine’s top commander Colonel General Aleksandr Syrsky admitted on Tuesday.
Located in the west of Russia’s Donetsk People’s Republic, Pokrovsk and Kurakhovsk sit on key supply roads linking Donetsk with Dnepropetrovsk and Zaporozhye. Pokrovsk is a major logistics hub for the Ukrainian Armed Forces, who have heavily fortified the city since 2014. Russian forces have been conducting heavy attacks on Pokrovsk in recent weeks, with American officials acknowledging on Monday that the Russians have been making “incremental gains” toward the city.
You should know by now that Ukrainian forces invaded Russia’s Kursk Region on August 06, in the largest attack on internationally recognized Russian territory since the outbreak of hostilities in February 2022.
And so, Syrsky's revelation aside, the Ukrainian leadership has already proven to be inconsistent in explaining their goals for the Kursk operation. Initially, the office of Ukrainian leader [V]ladimir [Z]elensky said the capture of Russian territory was necessary to intimidate the Russian public and obtain a stronger position during eventual peace talks with Moscow.
The messaging later shifted, with [Z]elensky claiming that he aimed to create a buffer zone inside Russian territory and deter Moscow from ordering an attack on Ukraine’s Sumy Region, which borders Kursk.
However, anonymous sources have told The Economist that Syrsky was on the cusp of being fired in early August, and ordered the Kursk operation out of “desperation”. Faced with mounting losses in Donbass, Syrsky’s main objective “was to draw [Russian] troops away from the Donbass stranglehold, and to create bargaining chips for any future negotiation”, the British magazine reported last week.
As Kyiv's incursion into Kursk Oblast enters its fourth week, Ukraine claims control of 1,294 square kilometers and 100 settlements, including the town of Sudzha. And a total of 594 Russian soldiers have been captured, according to Syrskyi.
But the advance has been halted by the Russian military, although fighting in the region continues.
Latest figures from the Russian Defense Ministry show that the incursion has cost Ukraine more than 6,600 service members, 73 tanks, 34 infantry fighting vehicles, 62 armored personnel carriers, 432 armored combat vehicles, 201 vehicles, 45 artillery pieces, and 13 multiple rocket launchers, including four HIMARS and one MLRS, five surface-to-air missile launchers, nine electronic warfare stations, two counter-battery radars, an air defense radar, five pieces of engineering equipment, including two engineering demolition vehicles and one UR-77 demining unit.
Over the last three weeks, Moscow has published videos of its forces destroying Ukrainian tanks, weapons, and personnel involved in the incursion.
It is unclear how many troops the Ukrainian military sent into Kursk Region, although American media outlets claimed earlier this month that as many as 10,000 servicemen were pulled from other sectors of the front to take part in the offensive. In Tuesday’s report, the Russian Defense Ministry said that Moscow’s forces had engaged elements of Ukraine’s 22nd, 61st, and 115th mechanized brigades, 80th and 82nd air assault brigades, and 1004th Security and Service Brigade in the previous 24 hours.
In the Ukrainian armed forces, a brigade typically consists of between 1,000 and 8,000 men, although severe attrition has left some Ukrainian brigades operating with as little as 10% of their pre-conflict strength since April, according to Western military analysts.
Apty Alaudinov (right), Akhmat commander and deputy chief of the Russian Armed Forces’ Main Military-Political Department, suspects there may be active duty service members from NATO countries serving as mercenaries in the Kursk area.
"You must understand that they have thrown together a ragtag army. And they have deployed as many foreign mercenaries as they could to there", the Russian commander told Rossiya-1 television. "I guess there are people among these foreign mercenaries who are in the military of the NATO bloc", he added.
Later, Alaudinov confirmed to TASS that he meant active NATO servicemen.
Elsewhere on the Special Military Operation battlefield, Russian forces make steady advances. Outposts like Andriivka, Chigari, Ivano-Darivka, Karlivka, Kostiantynivka, Lozuvatske, Lysychne, Orlovka, Pishchane, Pivdenne, Pokrovsk, Prohres, Rozivka, Sokil, Synkivka, Urozhaine, Volchie, Voskhod, Yevhenivka and Yurivka have all fallen into their hands.
On Monday, Russia launched a “massive” missile and drone attack aimed at energy infrastructure across Ukraine, marking the biggest air assault since the SMO began, Ukrainian officials said. Moscow has since followed that with a second wave of strikes early Tuesday morning.
The nationwide strikes used “more than 100 missiles of various types and around 100 Shahed drones. But it would seem that Ukraine didn't bat an eyelid because according to Ukrainian Air Force Commander Mykola Oleshchuk, they shot down 102 of the missiles and 99 attack drones. And if you believe him, it means Ukraine virtually escaped unscathed!
Whatever. Today is already Day 917. Methinks, the SMO is taking too long. I would really like to see Russia deliver a decisive knockout blow to the rogue state that is Ukraine and end the fighting.
