The Kursk Kerfuffle has excited observers over the last week. Just how large is it? What is its objective? Does Ukraine have reserves to carry it out?
Russia continues to attack inside Ukraine. But the big news is Ukraine seizing the local initiative inside Russia's Kursk province.
Initially Ukraine's attack begun last week seemed like a very well planned and executed raid by a reinforced battalion task force. Then reports of multiple brigades involved popped up. And then talk of enough brigades for a couple Ukrainian corps (which are large divisions from an American perspective) popped up. The most recent assessment I heard is that it was a brigade operation supported by elements of three other brigades. This story identifies the likely brigade:
Analysts said the vehicles involved, including U.S.-supplied Stryker armored vehicles, pointed to the 22nd Mechanized Brigade -- one of Ukraine’s more battle-hardened units -- as leading the charge.
ISW reports Russia is rushing troops to the area but they are atomized, under-strength formations that lack proper command structure to organize their fight.
But the fog of war is still thick.
First of all, it isn't driving on Moscow. Put away your World War II porn. Even if Ukraine had a force as large as their summer 2023 counteroffensive, such an advance would culminate just from the need to detach units from the advance to protect the flanks and supply lines of the troops advancing toward Moscow.
Second, if Russia ever uses nukes, that would be the reason to do it. Although you can never tell if using tactical nukes on Ukrainian troops inside Russia would freak Russians with power out so much that they overthrow Putin and end the war.
So what is it?
A spoiling attack to end Russia's threat to launch a large offensive this year?
A thunder run to tear up Russian infrastructure and inflict damage on a major part of the Russian army and its shake its morale?
A Trenton and Princeton operation to bolster the morale of Ukrainian troops with a decisive if smallish victory before pulling back to positions along the border--possibly with a buffer zone inside Russia?
An effort to roll up Russian units on the border to gain a long buffer zone inside Russia and hammer Russian troop morale?
An effort to divert troops from Russia's dangerous Avdiivka salient?
One suggestion is that it is for "Trump-proofing" Ukraine by providing Ukraine with a bargaining chip to trade to Russia for some of Ukraine's land back in compelled negotiations. If so, Ukraine may be taking a needless risk. Leaders of our allies seem needlessly panicked about alleged Republican isolationism. They should keep calm and carry on:
Republican reluctance to fund Ukraine is understandable given the incompetence of the Biden Administration so far in the Russo-Ukrainian conflict and how obstinately it has refused to secure the border with Mexico.
Decisions made in panic mode can be bad ones. If this motivation is true, Ukraine may have simply stuck their hand in a hornet's nest to allow Putin to rally Russian troops to expel the so-called invaders.
I also heard that the Ukrainians simply attacked a weak point in the Russian defenses. If so, it makes talk of geographical objectives inside Russia a distraction. Ukraine just wanted a win. Wherever they could get it. But is it a raid to inflict losses on the Russians or intended to capture and hold land?
It's very unclear to me. I doubt it is a large operation. But if this is big and intended to be lasting, that certainly makes up for the early war lack of a strategic reserve to strike back after Russia culminated in late summer 2022:
Ukraine, if it has the reserves, could rip Russia's army a new a-hole. Ukraine is attacking on the Kherson front. Let us hope that we don't have a replay of this tragic conversation in 1940:
Churchill asked General Gamelin, "Where is the strategic reserve?" which had saved Paris in the First World War. "There is none", Gamelin replied.The Ukrainians have been smart this war. I cannot believe that Ukraine has not built a strategic reserve. Even at the price of asking outmanned and outgunned Ukrainian troops to desperately hold the line in the Donbas.
As it turned out, Ukraine had no strategic reserve when Russia culminated in fall 2022. Four Ukrainian brigades did make a big advance in Kharkiv; and other units later compelled the Russians to pull back across the Dnipro River on the Kherson front. But nothing decisive was achieved. And by the time Ukraine did have such a reserve in summer 2023, it was too late. Russia had recovered and dug in.
Has Ukraine managed to accumulate a strategic reserve by taking risks on the front that has allowed Russia to grind forward? That would be good. I've long wanted a big counter-attack to eliminate Russia's Avdiivka salient. It's at least an option. Or did Ukraine make a bad decision in a panic that needlessly exposes its few reserves?
Or maybe Ukraine is making the best decision it can with an American government that it rightly believes will abandon it. They've seen Afghanistan. They may remember our premature departure from Iraq in 2011 and not be overly reassured by our return in 2014. And they may have read about South Vietnam. I don't see that. But I could be wrong.
But Ukraine's operation sure caught my attention. And as ISW notes, it may have really caught the attention of the Russians who may decide they must defend their ill-manned border north of the main fronts to prevent Ukraine from carrying out a similar operation in the future. That will put further strains on Russia's ability to mass forces inside Ukraine.
UPDATE (Monday): I don't know why I'm seeing talk of Ukraine "invading" Russia. This is much smaller than Russia's "special military operation" inside Ukraine so it barely counts, right?
UPDATE (Monday): Well, he also ordered the capture of Kyiv in three days and all of Ukraine in three weeks, so ... :
"The main task of the Ministry of Defence is now to drive the enemy out of our territories and ensure reliable border security," Putin said when opening a meeting on the crisis, Russian news agencies reported.
Oddly enough, that's been Ukraine's hope since February 2014.
UPDATE (Tuesday): That's good:
Ukraine said on Monday it had not seen any sign of a buildup of Belarusian forces near their border, contradicting a statement from Minsk that it had sent more troops to the area.
UPDATE (Wednesday): So a buffer zone to be given up when the Russians no longer fire at them?
Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi said the cross-border operation was aimed at protecting Ukrainian land from long-range strikes launched from Kursk.
I don't assume this is a definitive statement of the objective.
UPDATE (Wednesday): Ukraine's push into Russia near Kursk looks like what I hoped the Ukrainian summer 2023 counteroffensive could have achieved--if it had taken place in the fall of 2022:
[A German former general writing about the World War II eastern front] said that it was always better to counter-attack Russian advances quickly with whatever could be scraped together. Waiting to gather forces just gave the Russians time to dig in. Delay was asking for defeat. He was talking about tactical operations. But if you look at the 1943 German Kursk offensive you see the same thing on a larger scale. Apparently little has changed in 80 years.
UPDATE (Thursday): Ukraine's deep drone strike campaign continues:
Ukrainian drones targeted four Russian airfields Wednesday in the largest such attack of the war, as Kyiv’s troops advance further into Russia following their surprise cross-border incursion that has left the Kremlin embarrassed and scrambling.
Also, it seems like Ukraine's ground advance on the Kursk front is slowing down. Whether it's from Russian resistance or the limits of what a single reinforced brigade can do, I do not know.
UPDATE (Thursday): Hmmm:
Despite Russia pouring in reinforcements to counter the now eight-day-old invasion of Kursk, Ukraine is continuing to try and expand its footprint there, pushing to the north and west.
Just what objective is worth driving deeper into Russia? And how many brigades does Ukraine have in reserve?
On the other hand, if Ukraine was planning to end what is basically a raid, it would want Russian troops in a static, defensive posture while Ukraine pulls back to fortifications either inside Ukraine or just inside Russia.
UPDATE (Friday): The objective is still unclear and Ukraine's strength is uncertain: "Estimates of the number of troops operating there range from 5,000 to 12,000."
UPDATE (Friday): Endorsed:
Even in the boldness of the current incursion, the Ukrainians must be ready to accept when the spread of their military forces has culminated. They will inevitably reach a point where, if they don’t shift to the defensive—either in Kursk or back in Ukraine—they risk catastrophic defeat in detail.
UPDATE (Saturday): Ukraine pulled back from either a raid or an attempt to test other Russian defenses:
The Washington Post reported on August 15 that Ukrainian personnel who participated in cross-border assaults into Belgorod Oblast stated that Ukrainian groups conducted mechanized assaults near the Kolotilovka border checkpoint (on the international border northwest of Belgorod City) on August 11 and advanced up to roughly 10 kilometers in the area.
NOTE: ISW updates continue here. Also, I put war-related links and commentary in the Weekend Data Dump.
NOTE: I'm adding updates on the Last Hamas War in this post.
NOTE: I'm now on Substack, with The Dignified Rant: Evolved.