The Kursk Incursion
A bold reversal of fortunes. For now.
AP (“Ukraine claims more advances, prisoners taken as it presses an incursion into Russia“):
Ukrainian forces pushed on with their major cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region for a second week Wednesday, claiming to have taken more ground, captured more Russian prisoners and destroyed a jet bomber while launching what officials said was a massive attack on Russian military airfields.
Since the start of the day, assault troops had advanced 1-2 kilometers (miles) in some parts of Kursk, the commander of the Ukrainian military, Oleksandr Syrskyi, said in a video posted on President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Telegram channel.
Also, Ukrainian troops on Wednesday took more than 100 Russian soldiers prisoner, Syrskyi said. Zelenskyy said they would be used to swap for Ukrainian POWs.
Ukraine’s General Staff added that troops deployed in Kursk destroyed a Russian Su-34 jet used to launch devastating glide bombs at Ukrainian front-line positions and cities.
The surprise Ukrainian charge onto Russian soil that began Aug. 6 has rattled the Kremlin. The daring Kursk operation is the largest attack on Russia since World War II and could involve as many as 10,000 Ukrainian troops backed by armor and artillery, military analysts say.
Ukraine’s top military commander claims his forces have advanced into 1,000 square kilometers (386 square miles) of the Kursk region, though it was not possible to independently verify that claim.
If true, it would amount to capturing in just one week almost as much Ukrainian land as Russian forces took — 1,175 square kilometers (450 square miles) — between January and July this year, according to calculations by the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank.
Ukraine also claimed that overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday it conducted its biggest attack on Russian military airfields since the start of the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion in Feb. 2022.
A Ukrainian security official told The Associated Press that the aim was to sap Russia’s air power advantage in the war. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.
A Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Tuesday that Kyiv has no intention of occupying the Russian territory it says it is holding. The goal is to stop Russia from firing missiles into Ukraine from Kursk, he said.
Meanwhile, Russia’s Belgorod border region declared a regional emergency Wednesday under heavy Ukrainian shelling. A federal emergency was declared in Kursk last Saturday.
The Economist (“What next after Ukraine’s shock invasion of Russia?“):
UKRAINE’S LIGHTNING incursion into the Russian province of Kursk has exceeded the expectations of even those who planned it. On August 12th General Oleksandr Syrsky, Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, claimed that his forces controlled roughly 1,000 square kilometres of Russian territory. “Control” may be an overstatement. But in seven days the Ukrainians have seized almost as much territory as Russia has managed, at huge cost, to take from them since the start of the year (1,175 square kilometres). In the next few days the incursion will probably culminate, as troops tire and supply lines become stretched. The question is whether Ukraine can translate short-term gains into lasting strategic advantage.
The short-term gains are straightforward. Vladimir Putin has been palpably embarrassed: on August 12th he was shown on Russian state television castigating military, security and local government officials. Ukrainian forces have taken control of the story after many months of being on the back foot, notes Konrad Muzyka, a military analyst with Rochan Consulting, a firm that tracks the war. Ukraine has maintained tight security and has been able to surprise the enemy, much as General Syrsky’s offensive did against Russian forces in Kharkiv nearly two years ago. Ukraine believes it has shown that far from being frozen the conflict’s frontline is fluid, potentially changing the calculus of Russia and the West in any future negotiations.
Mr Muzyka cautions that Ukraine could suffer huge losses when Russia counter-attacks. So far it has not yet mustered forces to do so. There is still little sign of Russian resistance on the ground. Ukraine has taken a large number of prisoners, mostly callow conscripts or men from the National Guard, an internal military force. They have been quick to surrender. The Ukrainians have faced little opposition from the pockets of civilians who have stayed behind. Tens of thousands have been evacuated, according to the governor of Kursk. Many have left of their own accord, angry at the chaotic response.
Russia’s failure to mount a rapid counter-attack puzzles some Ukrainian officers. Rather than redeploying troops from the Donbas to Kursk, the Kremlin may be planning an asymmetrical response, such as a rocket barrage against the government quarter in Kyiv. So far Mr Putin faces no great pressure from public opinion at home: Russians are aware of the incursion, but the state-controlled media have reported on Russian forces’ supposedly successful resistance, and on the humanitarian situation. Apart from a few articles in relatively independent news sources, news of the chaos has not reached most citizens.
Even military bloggers, who sometimes critique the army’s failures, saw the invasion of the homeland mainly as an outrage that could unite Russians in demanding vengeance. (One hoped it would wake up spoiled Muscovites “sipping [their] raspberry frappés”.) Among Russians in the opposition or in exile, it has provoked mixed responses. Ilya Yashin, an opposition politician freed to the West in a prisoner exchange on August 2nd, blamed the “deaths and destruction” in Kursk on Mr Putin. Another opposition figure, Lev Shlosberg, who is still in Russia, said anyone welcoming Ukrainian military successes should no longer consider themselves a Russian politician.
What does Ukraine do next? The advance has moved so fast, and the Russians have been so slow to respond, that Ukraine may be rethinking objectives. The initial goals were to boost its own people’s morale, and give renewed confidence to Ukraine’s Western supporters that it deserves more military backing. Ukraine also wanted the Kremlin to divert troops from the front line, especially in the Donetsk region, where Russia is making advances along an axis between the towns of Toretsk, Pokrovsk and Chasiv Yar. Since the incursion began, Ukraine has lost control of part of the town of Hrodivka, 15km from Pokrovsk.
This analysis as to next steps strikes me as reasonable:
Assuming the Russians start deploying more capable forces to the area, the Ukrainians will have three options, says Mick Ryan, a retired Australian general and strategist. The maximalist approach would be to try to hold the territory it has seized—or even push further—in order to draw more Russian troops from Ukraine and provide a bargaining chip in any future negotiations. But this is risky, Mr Ryan points out. It would be hard for Ukraine to maintain electronic-warfare and air-defence coverage for even well dug-in troops across such a wide salient. The Ukrainians know how lethal Russian glide bombs are against fixed positions. Ukraine would have to divert resources from the front line inside its own territory, and its forces’ losses in Kursk would undermine its positive story.
A second option would be to pull back to the border in good order, preserving troops and equipment for attempts to reclaim Ukrainian territory next year. Ukraine would have shown that it can take the war to Russia and undermined the narrative of a grinding, inevitable Russian victory, which has developed traction among Ukraine’s less resolute allies.
A third option would be to withdraw partially to a more defensible position nearer the Ukrainian border which would require fewer troops and be better supported by artillery and logistics. It would also form a base for further attacks when opportunities arise. A source in Ukraine’s general staff suggests this is the most likely option: some logistics—engineering forces, fuel, field hospitals, food and repair bases—have already been moved several kilometres inside the Russian border.
lt’s too early to get excited by a reversal in fortunes. The basic math of the conflict hasn’t changed, after all: Russia still vastly outmans Ukraine.
Still, that they’ve finally taken the fight into Russia proper rather than absorbing all of the damage at home is a welcome sign. Whether this is because they had been held back by the Biden administration or whether they didn’t believe themselves ready before now is hard to know.
Looking at the map the only thing I can see that they can do – other than humiliate Putin – is turn right and hit Russian forces in the flank. But IANAG. (I am not a general.)
One thing we don’t know is what Russian assets are now in range. Ukraine has talked about aircraft. There was also a rumor early (that I haven’t seen repeated) that Children of Russian officials who were in the military were based in this area.
There are a number of goals and gains possible from the operation. Putting aside obvious ones like diverting Russian forces from Donbas, holding Russian land makes Putin’s refrain about recognizing realities on the ground and freezing the conflict hit differently, giving Ukraine something to trade in peace talks.
The POWs aren’t a goal in themselves but, considering the UN has found 95% of Ukrainian POWs are tortured by Russia, being able to trade for more of your people helps. Finally, Russia’s way of advancing is grinding towns to dust. Way better that it should be doing that to its own population centers than Ukrainian ones.
More direct military reasons for the action: spoiling attack to prevent Russian offensive in Sumy and push artillery out of range, create breathing space for Kharkiv after the summer’s push against it. If offensive goes very well could shorten front lines or make it to the Kursk nuclear plant (which, Russia currently holds Ukraine’s Enerhodar).
Last thing for those unfamiliar with the region – the land taken by Ukraine in this offensive is largely flat, as is the area of the international border. There’s no reason to think Ukraine is less able to hold it than they are the towns around Kharkiv.
Now Ukraine has Russian territory to negotiate with in any coming peace talks. Up to this point, all the pontifications on peace were about Ukraine giving up, at least, any claim to the Ukrainian provinces Obama gave Putin for the first invasion of Ukraine. Now Ukraine has Russian dirt in the mix.
If they can hold into winter, then hit the rail heads needed by Russia to move their troops, Ukraine can slow any Russian response to a move on the southern end of the front.
I follow the Institute for the Understanding of War for updates on the Ukraine-Russian War:
Ukraine Conflict Updates
Their summary of their analysis is as follows:
One assessment stood out to me:
Let’s not be deluded.
Even if the incursion doesn’t lead to permanent loss of Russian territory, it’s a devastating psychological blow. Kursk was where the Red Army stopped the Wehrmacht cold in 1943, bringing to an end the days of victorious German summer offensives.
@JKB:
Trump attempted to bully Ukraine’s leadership into lying for him. He withheld aid that had been appropriated. He was impeached for that.
Just thought you might appreciate that reminder. Along with a reminder that Trump denigrated NATO and invited Putin to attack our allies. Your messiah is a rapist, a fraud, a pathological liar, a woman-hater, a racist and a traitor. Trump is the biggest traitor in American history, outpacing even Benedict Arnold.
So, STFU, you have no standing to criticize anyone on foreign policy so long as you tongue-polish a traitor’s shoes.
@SC_Birdflyte:
I think that connection has been under-reported, because Americans don’t do history. Kursk was Russia’s Gettysburg, the battle where the tide definitively turned.
@Michael Reynolds: Interestingly enough, it feels like what Ukraine is doing here is similar to what Lee was attempting in 1863 that led to Gettysburg. Invade the enemy territory, to influence the enemy political situation, and create pressure for peace negotiations.
My best guess is that what Ukraine does with their gains depends a lot on how the Russians react. I think the other strategic goal of the incursion is to force the RA to commit more forces – well-trained and well-equipped forces – to some other area than their positions in the Ukraine. It wants to thin them out.
That means their is a lot of operational flexibility. What they go for is whatever will hurt the enemy the most. Airfields, rail centers, missile launch sites, SAMs. Oil refineries. Also try to make headlines.
It may be the Russia is hoping that they overcommit, and can be trapped and destroyed, which would be a very powerful political countermessage. Ukranians are being cagey, though. I don’t forsee a thunder run.
I appreciate you giving the topic some attention. With the non-stop idiotic political sports coverage, actual news slips through the cracks.
I mainly just wanted to point out and laugh about the use of “(miles)” as an explainer for kilometers.
@Jay L Gischer: Gettysburg is an interesting comparison. Lee was unaware that That Meade had arrived from Washington overnight and doubled the Union defenses. The reason he didn’t know of the reinforcement was that he had no cavalry, Stuart was off showboating by riding around the Union army. Ukraine on the other hand has the benefit of very good satellite and human intelligence to detect the movement of Russian troops.
Damn, still no edit.
@a country lawyer: It’s a very fair point. The Ukrainian invasion force absolutely runs the risk of getting pinned down and destroyed. Meanwhile, it seems that the RA was caught flatfooted, and didn’t see the incursion coming, despite their own surveillance/intel assets, which I presume are considerable.
So that sort of thing can happen even these days with satellites.
@a country lawyer:
It does have some things in common with Lee’s northern campaign, but
IMO, Lee’s mistake at Gettysburg was seeking a decisive battle in it. Had he pulled out with his army intact it would’ve been just fine. The North was teetering on the brink of conceding the succession and simply demonstrating the ability to wreck havoc at will would’ve been far better than what happened, a tremendous victory for the North right on the heels of the tremendous victory of Vicksburg.
I would discount Putin’s embarrassment as a worth-while goal of this one though. He was humiliated by failure to take Kyiv, humiliated by the loss of the tight bank of the Kherson areas, humiliated by the loss of the Kharkov oblast. Made no difference. Unlike Lincoln, Putin has Russia is under his complete control. The objectives of this incursion are unclear, but to me the thing to look for is whether or not this stops, or at least pauses, Russia’s slow ooze on the eastern fronts.
Supposedly what the Ukrainians are concentrating on now is taking out as many of Russia’s bombers and airfields as possible.
Send Ukraine some more drones. They’ve been using them quite effectively.
What I thought to compare it to was Scipio invading Carthage while Hannibal rampaged in Italy. The intent was to have the Carthaginian rulers recall Hannibal to keep Scipio from doing to them what Hannibal was doing to Rome.
But that’s not what Ukraine is doing, namely because they can neither make alliances with other countries bordering Russia, nor occupy vast areas of Russia.
The intent seems to be to draw forces from the occupied Ukrainian lands to deal with the Ukrainian troops inside Russia, and it’s not clear that’s working.
I wonder if they can consolidate a position just the same, and use it as a base of operations to disrupt Russia’s logistics. Probably not.
Oh man I kind of hope the force making the incursions have Marder IFVs. That way this could be the second time Marders rolled into kursk. Hopefully this time it goes much better.
@Jay L Gischer:
The indications are the Russians are scrambling for containment. Tricky business, that. Set too close and it gets over-run too. A bit too far back is always safer, if you can concede the land. The Ukrainians seem to be hip, and are sending small batches of skirmishers as far afield as they dare, leading many of the commentators to leap to the conclusion every place a Ukrainian is sighted is taken territory, I suspect. Expect in another week or three for the picture to clear up.
I have a hunch the Ukrainians built up these sparkling new brigades and were naturally reluctant to just feed them into the wide open spaces/meatgrinder that is the eastern front. A place with hills and trees was chosen for them. The guys long-suffering in the meatgrinder are not going to be happy about that, but all will be forgiven IF it draws the Russians away.
@reid: By the way, my criticism of political coverage was a dig at mainstream media, not this fine site.
@dazedandconfused: Based on some videos I’ve watched, Ukraine has recently received both Patriot systems and more F16s. This reportedly gives them to establish local air superiority for a limited time. Couple that with their proven ability to take out Russian S-300 and S-400 SAM sites, and you have a recipe for really wrecking a fast-moving support column.
I don’t know if this is what’s happening, I am pretty sure it could be happening. I don’t know where this is going, either. But maybe nobody knows that. I expect there is a lot of operational flexibility built into this effort.
I’d like to think the Kursk incursion would put political pressure on Putin. But my mental picture of the Russian “electorate” is Alabama, with FOX having a state monopoly on entertainment and information. The Russian public know what Putin wants them to know. But rival elites? Who knows. I assume that we share intel pretty freely with Ukraine, so they have really good satellite and communications intel. When it comes to politics, I expect Ukraine has pretty good human intel on Russia and backchannels to some elites.
I’m not seeing what Ukraine is attempting here. But if I could see it, the Russians easily would. I’m just hoping the Ukrainians know.
The current situation within Ukraine is that the Russian army has fairly strong defensive positions. So does the UAF.
Attacks on such postions absent air superiority, which neither side has, tend to produce very high casualty levels.
Which is why UAF quickly shut down its offensive in summer last year: the attrition rate was too high.
Russia however has been willing to accept very heavy losses in order to grind forward in central Donbas.
It attempted a limited secondary offensive around Kharkiv, which faltered fairly quickly.
Ukraine was able to identify an inadequately defended area, and exploited that.
The likelihood is they will try to expand cautiously while they can, while preparing defensive lines in their rear. If I had to guess, probably just forward of the rail line from around Giri via Sudzha to Malya Loknya and then back to the Ukraine border.
The Russian army will pretty likely attempt to recover this area for reasons of “prestige”; and Ukraine can impose adverse attrition.
It’s also possible UAF may hope that the combination of Swedish Saab 340 AEW aircraft and F-16 with long range air to air missiles (the F-16 and 340 both use the Link16 data system) will enable them to hit Russian attack aircraft launching glide bombs at the salient as well as in Donbas.
Another factor: UAF is now receiving the 152mm shells from the EU purchase project (estimate total c.800,000 from stocks and an unknown number from reactivated old plants in central Europe). And it looks like the 155mm supply is gradually increasing (albeit still too slowly largely due to govt/corporate squabbles over contract terms.
German 155mm supply in July appears to have reached 71,000 in June; there are no clear figures for all-Europe numbers, but around 100,000 per month is a reasonable estimate.
Not enough to clear the way for UAF offensives, but perhaps enough to increase the attrition rate on Russian attacks still further.
@JohnSF:Have been hearing that the Russians are throwing vastly disparent formations at the Kursk pocket, from different chains of command, etc and that Putin’s former bodyguard is now the commander. Does not seem a formidable group. In the back of my mind is a suspicion that the UAF are demonstrating how thoroughly broken is the Russian army.
@Johnmc: Yeah, many of the Ukranian senior leadership were likely trained in the Russian system, and understand it quite well, and have now had the benefit of NATO help in figuring out how it is weak, and how to exploit that.
For instance, battles of mobility. The RA is terrible at them, because they rely on lots of low-level initiative and good training of front-line troops.
I’m not ready to yet say that the RA has collapsed. This kind of thing was a vulnerability of theirs all along, even when they were fresh.
@Johnmc:
The Russian High Command continues to demonstrate both inflexible centralised army command, and separate forces chains of command.
It looks like in Kursk, the army units were “territorial defence” formations, not under control of the Joint Forces Command (which is running the war in Ukraine) but under Moscow Military District, FSB border guards units, Chechen “Akhmat” forces, and Rosgvardia internal security troops.
With all having separate command chains.
The whole setup is characteristic of “coup proofing” organizations of forces. The government does not want a military high command structure that can be turned against it. So, separated forces, each watching the other, controlled centrally by regime loyalists, central review of commands to units.
The system tends to ensure regime security at the cost of sluggishness and lack of coordination in the face of unexpected events: see the Wagner revolt.
@Jay L Gischer:
Probably no accident that the move happened right after the F-16s showed up.
As the article in the OP mentions, those FAB glide bombs are not only cheap, they are effective against fixed fortifications. They have been causing big problems. An artillery shell has to be strong enough to withstand being fired from a cannon and thereby doesn’t pack a lot of bang. Aerial bombs do not have that problem and can be nearly all explosive, and the Russians have three versions, 500kg, 1500kg, and the devastating 3000kgs. Bangs that big can not only bust up the best field fortifications, they can kill the people in trenches with just the concussive pressure for quite some distance. The only problem is the platforms that carry them have to get within 40k of the target, way too close when dealing with modern air to air missile equipped F-16s.
I would not be surprised of one of the objectives of this op was to tempt the Russians to deploy the few planes which can drop the 3000s at a roughly predictable time and place, anyway.
@SC_Birdflyte:
I believe that was the biggest tank battle of all time.
@anjin-san:
Widely thought to be so, but some military historians believe that Soviet propaganda boosted the numbers somewhat.
In this version either Battle of Bialystok-Minsk or Battle of Brody, both in June/July 1941, are more likely contenders.
For obvious reasons, the Soviet Union preferred to play up a Red Army victory, and pass over two massive defeats.
The others coming close, though probable still behind Kursk 1944
Battle of the Bulge 1944/5
Battle of 73 Easting/Battle of “Norfolk”/”Fright Night” 1991
(The Battle of Norfolk being perhaps the last hurrah of the British 1st Armoured: crushing eight Iraqi divisions in roughly 100 hours of fighting. Not bad work.)
Cursed missing edit button:
Depending on what estimates are now regarded as valid, Kursk may actually be in fifth place, or in third.
It’s unfortunate that after a few years of relatively open historical inquiry in the 1990’s and early noughts, Russia has reverted to “Red Army mythology = national gospel truth” and effectively closed the archives.