One wonders if Vladimir Putin knew that not only would his three day “special military operation” in Ukraine drag on for at least two and a half years, but that Ukraine would launch a successful invasion of Kursk oblast, if he might have reconsidered ordering it.
Ukraine’s Kursk incursion continues to take territory in Russia.
A lot of observers (myself included) were puzzled by what endgame Ukraine is seeking in Kursk. So here are a couple of theories.
Peter Zeihan thinks the invasion is to cut off supplies to the city of Belgorod (one of the two major logistical hubs for Russia’s war effort).
“No one invades Russia on a whim.”
“The problem that the Russians have always had expanding for Moscow is that there’s no logical place to stop that’s within a thousand miles of them. So they expand, they conquer some minorities, they occupy them, they try to Russify them, they turn them to cannon fodder, and they throw them in the next line of minorities. They continue this process over and over and over and over and over until they eventually reach a geographic barrier that they can actually hunker down behind.”
“It works until it doesn’t. And what we’re seeing with Russia right now is that the demographic decline among the Russian ethnicity is so high that within a few years they’re going to be having problems occupying their own populations.”
“The incursion that the Ukrainians have made into Russia proper isn’t all that impressive from a territorial point of view. Basically in the last two weeks the Ukrainians have invaded Russia proper. They’ve taken over about a thousand square kilometers in the province of Kursk. And the question is why, and what is next.”
“They have already destroyed the three permanent bridges over the river Seym, which is a east-west river that cuts through Kursk province, and by doing that they’ve made it very difficult for the Russians to reinforce the territories around where this incursion has been.”
“The Ukrainians are currently expanding on at least four different axes, northwest, northeast, north and east, and in doing so they’re basically looking to swallow, at least temporarily, about half the province, about 6,000 square mile.”
“The thousand square kilometers that the Ukrainians have captured so far is greater than the entirety of what the Russian army has achieved in the Donbas in the last 18 months.”
Ukraine has taken out all the bridges, leaving Russians to use pontoon bridges for resupply, which are much more easily destroyed. And, as Suchomimus has shown in his recent videos, they seem to be rebuilding those bridges in the same spots, presumably because they’re the only suitable spots for building them, making it that much easier to take them out.
“I have always identified the city of Belgorad as one of the cities that the Ukrainians have to neutralize if they’re ever going to win this war, because it’s the tip of the spear for Russian forces. This is where, in the northern theater, all of their armies and all of their artillery are concentrated, because it’s at the end of the logistical lines. It’s a big rail and road hub. Well, if the Ukrainians are capable of basically taking the southern half of Kursk province, they take out most of the infrastructure that feeds into Belgorad.” Maybe, but there’s a whole lot of territory to take before Belgorad gets cut off.
“This took the Ukrainians scraping up the last of their reserve units, along with some advanced units that were training with NATO for future operations. I don’t think they’ve got a very deep bench beyond this.”
Invading here has allowed Ukraine to outflank Russia’s deep system of trenches, minefields and artillery. “The Ukrainians have been able to basically locate a battlefield that plays to their strengths rather than the Russian strengths and they’re kicking some serious ass.”
“The problem is they just don’t probably have enough men to fully take advantage of it, but neither do the Russians have the men necessary to eject the Ukrainians. Russia is also nearing the end of what they can scrape up through conscription of ethnic minorities. “The cupboard is getting dry.” They’re also extremely low on capable leadership (such as it is). Putin “just assigned one of his former bodyguards to run the operation in Kursk, and you can imagine how well that’s going.”
“What we’ve seen them do in the last two weeks is basically mobilize every military force that they have left in the country, which is not a lot.”
“They haven’t been able to find the 30,000 to 70,000 troops that they need in order to retake Kursk, and with the bridges gone they can only approach from the east, so the Ukrainians are having a bit of a heyday at the moment.”
The biggest fallout of the Kursk incursion is a dog that didn’t bark. “Nukes haven’t flown. Throughout this war, the Russians have, at every stage, identified a series of red lines, saying that if you cross this line we’re going to nuke Washington and Warsaw, Berlin and Paris and London and the rest, and at every stage it’s turned out to be a bluff. Well, now the Ukrainians have crossed the international border in force. They have castrated the Russian military in the area.”
“The Russians are showing an inability or an unwillingness to go to that level, and that tells me that the conservatism in Western capitals about challenging the Russians is about to evaporate. Because if the Ukrainians can do this without that sort of counter reaction, then pretty much every Russian threat to this point is meaningless.”
Next up: The Russian Dude, an anti-Putin and anti-Ukrainian War YouTuber who fled Russia just as the first conscription orders were coming down. He thinks the Kursk invasion may be a way to force Putin into calling up a second general conscription, something he has been loath to do since the first was so unpopular.
“The initial reaction to Ukraine’s move into Kursk was mixed. Many, especially those in the Russian military establishment, dismissed it as a mere PR stunt or a psychological operation, a distraction intended to draw attention away from other fronts. But as the days progressed, it became clear that this was no mere show of force. The Ukrainian Army was committed, and their objectives were far more strategic than anyone had anticipated.”
Even “Z propagandists” in Russia are admitting that ejecting Ukraine from Kursk oblast will take time. “This was a wakeup call. The country’s military and political leaders had long been accustomed to dismissing Ukrainian operations as inconsequential. The belief was that Russia’s superior military power would always be enough to repel any significant threat. But the events unfolding in Kirsk challenged this assumption.” Even some of the most pro-war Russian milbloggers began to express doubts.
“Russian president Vladimir Putin is facing a very scary decision. For years Putin has positioned himself as a strongman, a leader who would stop at nothing to achieve his goals. But the events in Kursk revealed the limits of his power. The Russian military, once his unstoppable force, was now struggling to respond to a determined and well-coordinated Ukrainian offensive.”
“Putin’s dilemma is rooted in the fact that he has few good options left. The Russian military is stretched thin, its resources depleted by years of sustaining conflict the invasion of Ukraine, which was supposed to be a quick and decisive victory, has instead turned to a grinding war of attrition. And now, with the Ukrainian forces pushing into Russian territory, the weaknesses of the Russian military are becoming more apparent than ever.”
“One of the key indicators of this is the absence of a new mobilization effort, despite the heavy losses Russia has suffered. Putin has not ordered a new wave of conscription [because] another round of mobilization would likely would like destabilize his regime. The last call-up in 2022 was deeply unpopular, sparking protest and unrest across the country.”
“Many Russians who had previously been indifferent to the war suddenly found themselves directly affected and the backlash was significant. Putin knows that another mobilization would likely provoke a similar response, potentially undermining his hold on power, but without new recruits the Russian military is running out of manpower.”
“Russia’s defense industry is struggling to keep up with the demands of the war. Missiles fired at Ukrainian cities bare markings from 2023 and 2024, indicating that they were produced recently. This suggests that Russia has managed to bypass some of the sanctions imposed by the West to acquire the components needed to build these weapons. But it also means that there is no surplus. Every single missile produced is immediately sent to the battlefield. The same is true for other military equipment like tanks, drones, and ammunition.”
Everyone who could be tempted by a sign-up bonus has already joined, even though they keep increasing. “If you do announce another round of mobilization and start grabbing people from the streets and sending them to fight in Ukraine for free, well, I don’t think that’s going to sit well with these people.”
“While Russia grapples with these challenges, Ukraine’s western allies have been surprisingly quiet, in a good way.”
“This raises the question: Have they finally realized that Putin’s ability to escalate the war further is limited? The answer appears to be yes. After nearly two years of watching Russia’s military strategy unfold, it seems that western powers have concluded that Putin is already operating at his maximum capacity.”
“Now Western leaders seem more willing to allow Ukraine to use the weapons as it sees fit. The focus has shifted from preventing escalation to supporting Ukraine in its efforts to defend itself and reclaim its territory.”
“Ukraine is now receiving more advanced technology, including long-range missiles and sophisticated drones. These weapons are designed to not just defend against Russian attacks, but to strike deeper inside Russian-held territory, disrupting supply lines and targeting key military objects.”
Thus far Putin has avoided seriously conscripting soldiers from the only two areas of the country he cares about: Moscow and St. Petersburg. Ukraine’s Kursk gambit may force him into doing so, possibly triggering his downfall.
This entry was posted on Saturday, August 24th, 2024 at 5:14 PM and is filed under Foreign Policy, Military, video. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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15 Responses to “Two Views Of Ukraine’s Invasion Of Russia”
I have no way of running the numbers, but I wonder whether it might not’ve been more cost-effective for Russia to build either a honkin’ big wall, or a very wide and deep canal, along any unsecured borders, rather than going to war all the time. Bulldozers and dynamite would make it relatively easy I’d think. The Chinese built the Great Wall with nothing but massive slave labor.
Walls must be manned, or else they are easily surmounted. Even then, they’re most effective against an enemy with nothing more than small arms. Artillery can poke holes in walls with relatively little effort. Witness the Atlantic Wall and the Siegfried Line, or for that matter, the easily-bypassed Maginot Line.
I’ve been following a number of pundits who have been focusing heavily on the logistics side of this conflict. Nobody knows just what Russia has left in the tank–most estimates seem to be 6-18 months, possibly less if Belgorod gets cut off from meaningful resupply and the units there rout without their gear or are captured. Nobody seems to know what Ukraine has left, either, and while it may be hurting for troops on the ground, its strategic bombing campaign seems to be slowly ramping up in size and effectiveness. The denouement inches ever closer, but the results appear as murky as ever.
The Ukrainians are Cossaks. The Cossacks are light cavalry. Light cavalry are for deep penetration raids. Interesting the Ukrainians are finding themselves.
Peter Zeihan :The Russians are showing an inability or an unwillingness to go to [the nuclear] level.”
If Putin uses nukes in Ukraine, it opens the door to using the same strategy against China’s attempted annexation of Taiwan. There is no way that the thermonuclear genie gets released from the bottle over the conquest of a single, solitary Russian oblast.
Russia will begin forcing women and children into their army if that is what it takes.
Putin and his govt. officials could care less how many dead Russians there will be to defeat Ukraine. As for their lack of missiles, etc., they will just buy them from wherever.
If Kamala Cackling Harris gets into office, you watch: she will fund Iran – which sends drones to Russia , oil prices will rise (thus helping Russia). Russia will just have more $$$ to buy weapons from Iran and China and whichever nation will accept payment.
The Russian populace accepted their own extermination when Stalin was running the show. Stalin never had to worry about finding folks that would obey him and do all the dirty work. The Russians just took orders, and marched themselves and their victims to the Gulags.
Russian will obey their govt. even if it means suicide. This is the Russian mindset.
Just watch; the Russians will launch an offensive in some other part of the Ukraine to take pressure off Kursk. Ukraine does not have enough manpower to keep on taking Russian land. The more territory they take, the longer will be their supply lines and the thinner will be their front line forces.
Shade of the German invasion of Russia ??? How well did that end for Germany (or earlier, for Napoleon).
Trent Telenko has been hammering the logistics point since the start of this war. Most notably, that Russia is still using human beings moving things by hand on and off the vehicles, while Ukraine has been using an increasong proportion of palletized and mechanized logistics, which is a huge force multiplier. The recent incidents in the Russian railway system are pretty clear indicators of serious stress, and as Telenko has been pointing out, they’ve been commandeering (and losing) civilian vehicles in large numbers in logistics roles for quite a while because they never had enough military ones. The Russian supply line needs to be calculated from Moscow; Belgorod is just the depot, and Crimea is more and more isolated (all the ferries have been sunk, I’m not sure about the reliability of the Kerch bridge at this point). The Russian logistics are definitely the weakest point in the whole war and I expect the coming winter to stress that even further, possibly to the breaking point.
If Russia could launch a new offensive, any sort of offensive at all, they would have done it already.
If the Russians are sensible they’ll come to some sort of terms, any terms at all, before their army collapses. But if they were sensible they wouldn’t have gotten into this in the first place.
Some people will believe anything.
Some people believe every single word that the media reports straight from the Hamas Ministry of Health and take it as the truth.
People are funny.
The Ukrainian forces that invaded Russia are almost all dead. The Ukrainian forces holding the Russians in the Donbass are much weaker now and their reinforcements are, as mentioned, dead in Kursk Oblat.
What kind of idiot invades Russia? When did that last work out well?
“Ukraine does not have enough manpower to keep on taking Russian land.”
Yet they continue to expand their bridgehead. When Ukraine scarfs up 3,000 POW mobniks on the way to Belgorod oblast, you will declaim the ability of Ukraine to build sufficient holding capacity for all the war captives.
“If the Russians are sensible they’ll come to some sort of terms,..”
Bourgeois “sensibilities” lead inevitably to indoor plumbing and hot/cold running water. This is a cultural disease vector causing Ruzzian peeplz to become vassals of corrupt Western consumerism.
Ruzzian peeplz must be stronk to endure Siberian winter and gulag internment. Effete Western practices, such as cleanly washed clothes, hot food meal preparation and daily bathing will vitiate the Iron Will of comrades.
[…] Gabbard (like people all over the world) joins the ‘Trump Train—TRUMP TRAIN!’ BattleSwarm: Two Views Of Ukraine’s Invasion Of Russia, Followup: Timelapse Of Kursk Incursion, and Texas AG Paxton Sues Biden Administration Over Illegal […]
“When Ukraine scarfs up 3,000 POW mobniks on the way to Belgorod oblast, you will declaim the ability of Ukraine to build sufficient holding capacity for all the war captives.”
The Ukrainians report to the Red Cross that they only holding “a few hundred” Russian POW’s. Of course, the Ukrainians do lie when the the truth would serve them better.
The Ukrainians have finally learned the key point of OPSEC in this war, which is “Don’t tell the Americans anything you don’t want in Moscow within 24 hours…”
Which is why the information coming out of Kursk can’t be trusted. How long did they keep this quiet, and how did they prevent the Americans from finding out so they could warn Moscow?
Ask those questions, and then start asking what else is going on with the information war. My guess is that all those reports about “weakened Ukrainian forces” are deliberately being released, and that the Russians advancing out of their prepared and fixed defenses may be wandering out into the killing field.
I have no way of running the numbers, but I wonder whether it might not’ve been more cost-effective for Russia to build either a honkin’ big wall, or a very wide and deep canal, along any unsecured borders, rather than going to war all the time. Bulldozers and dynamite would make it relatively easy I’d think. The Chinese built the Great Wall with nothing but massive slave labor.
Walls must be manned, or else they are easily surmounted. Even then, they’re most effective against an enemy with nothing more than small arms. Artillery can poke holes in walls with relatively little effort. Witness the Atlantic Wall and the Siegfried Line, or for that matter, the easily-bypassed Maginot Line.
I’ve been following a number of pundits who have been focusing heavily on the logistics side of this conflict. Nobody knows just what Russia has left in the tank–most estimates seem to be 6-18 months, possibly less if Belgorod gets cut off from meaningful resupply and the units there rout without their gear or are captured. Nobody seems to know what Ukraine has left, either, and while it may be hurting for troops on the ground, its strategic bombing campaign seems to be slowly ramping up in size and effectiveness. The denouement inches ever closer, but the results appear as murky as ever.
The Ukrainians are Cossaks. The Cossacks are light cavalry. Light cavalry are for deep penetration raids. Interesting the Ukrainians are finding themselves.
[…] Attacking so fast they won't know what hit them… « Two Views Of Ukraine’s Invasion Of Russia […]
Peter Zeihan :The Russians are showing an inability or an unwillingness to go to [the nuclear] level.”
If Putin uses nukes in Ukraine, it opens the door to using the same strategy against China’s attempted annexation of Taiwan. There is no way that the thermonuclear genie gets released from the bottle over the conquest of a single, solitary Russian oblast.
[…] BATTLESWARM BLOG: Two Views Of Ukraine’s Invasion Of Russia. […]
How quickly people forget the motivations and outcome of the first Battle of Kursk. The Russians ended up in Berlin if memory serves me correctly.
Russia will begin forcing women and children into their army if that is what it takes.
Putin and his govt. officials could care less how many dead Russians there will be to defeat Ukraine. As for their lack of missiles, etc., they will just buy them from wherever.
If Kamala Cackling Harris gets into office, you watch: she will fund Iran – which sends drones to Russia , oil prices will rise (thus helping Russia). Russia will just have more $$$ to buy weapons from Iran and China and whichever nation will accept payment.
The Russian populace accepted their own extermination when Stalin was running the show. Stalin never had to worry about finding folks that would obey him and do all the dirty work. The Russians just took orders, and marched themselves and their victims to the Gulags.
Russian will obey their govt. even if it means suicide. This is the Russian mindset.
Just watch; the Russians will launch an offensive in some other part of the Ukraine to take pressure off Kursk. Ukraine does not have enough manpower to keep on taking Russian land. The more territory they take, the longer will be their supply lines and the thinner will be their front line forces.
Shade of the German invasion of Russia ??? How well did that end for Germany (or earlier, for Napoleon).
Trent Telenko has been hammering the logistics point since the start of this war. Most notably, that Russia is still using human beings moving things by hand on and off the vehicles, while Ukraine has been using an increasong proportion of palletized and mechanized logistics, which is a huge force multiplier. The recent incidents in the Russian railway system are pretty clear indicators of serious stress, and as Telenko has been pointing out, they’ve been commandeering (and losing) civilian vehicles in large numbers in logistics roles for quite a while because they never had enough military ones. The Russian supply line needs to be calculated from Moscow; Belgorod is just the depot, and Crimea is more and more isolated (all the ferries have been sunk, I’m not sure about the reliability of the Kerch bridge at this point). The Russian logistics are definitely the weakest point in the whole war and I expect the coming winter to stress that even further, possibly to the breaking point.
If Russia could launch a new offensive, any sort of offensive at all, they would have done it already.
If the Russians are sensible they’ll come to some sort of terms, any terms at all, before their army collapses. But if they were sensible they wouldn’t have gotten into this in the first place.
Some people will believe anything.
Some people believe every single word that the media reports straight from the Hamas Ministry of Health and take it as the truth.
People are funny.
The Ukrainian forces that invaded Russia are almost all dead. The Ukrainian forces holding the Russians in the Donbass are much weaker now and their reinforcements are, as mentioned, dead in Kursk Oblat.
What kind of idiot invades Russia? When did that last work out well?
“Ukraine does not have enough manpower to keep on taking Russian land.”
Yet they continue to expand their bridgehead. When Ukraine scarfs up 3,000 POW mobniks on the way to Belgorod oblast, you will declaim the ability of Ukraine to build sufficient holding capacity for all the war captives.
“If the Russians are sensible they’ll come to some sort of terms,..”
Bourgeois “sensibilities” lead inevitably to indoor plumbing and hot/cold running water. This is a cultural disease vector causing Ruzzian peeplz to become vassals of corrupt Western consumerism.
Ruzzian peeplz must be stronk to endure Siberian winter and gulag internment. Effete Western practices, such as cleanly washed clothes, hot food meal preparation and daily bathing will vitiate the Iron Will of comrades.
Away with “sensible Russian” sentimentalism!
[…] Gabbard (like people all over the world) joins the ‘Trump Train—TRUMP TRAIN!’ BattleSwarm: Two Views Of Ukraine’s Invasion Of Russia, Followup: Timelapse Of Kursk Incursion, and Texas AG Paxton Sues Biden Administration Over Illegal […]
“When Ukraine scarfs up 3,000 POW mobniks on the way to Belgorod oblast, you will declaim the ability of Ukraine to build sufficient holding capacity for all the war captives.”
The Ukrainians report to the Red Cross that they only holding “a few hundred” Russian POW’s. Of course, the Ukrainians do lie when the the truth would serve them better.
The Ukrainians have finally learned the key point of OPSEC in this war, which is “Don’t tell the Americans anything you don’t want in Moscow within 24 hours…”
Which is why the information coming out of Kursk can’t be trusted. How long did they keep this quiet, and how did they prevent the Americans from finding out so they could warn Moscow?
Ask those questions, and then start asking what else is going on with the information war. My guess is that all those reports about “weakened Ukrainian forces” are deliberately being released, and that the Russians advancing out of their prepared and fixed defenses may be wandering out into the killing field.