By David Sole
The August 6 military incursion by Ukraine into the Kursk region of the Russian Federation is turning out to be militarily insignificant and perhaps even harmful to Ukraine’s overall battlefield position.
First estimates seriously underestimated the number of Ukrainian troops that crossed onto Russian territory accompanied by large numbers of tanks, armored personnel carriers and armored fighting vehicles. Current information indicates that over eleven thousand battle hardened Ukrainian soldiers punched their way through lightly defended Russian border defenses. This operation is still ongoing.
Only two reasonable goals can be attributed to the Ukrainian operation. One is that Ukraine hoped that a powerful force crossing the Russian border would force the Russians to pull many of their troops from current battle positions in the Donbass area. The Russians have been pushing the Ukrainians back along a wide front threatening their control over long held and heavily fortified towns such as Pokrovsk and Toretsk. The Russians, however, have not withdrawn troops from these areas of contact to deal with the Kursk incursion.
The second, but least mentioned aim of the Ukrainians, was to fight their way inland and capture the Kursk nuclear power plant near the city of Kurchatov, a distance of about 45 miles. The Ukrainians were unable to penetrate that far in the first days and Russia has been bringing in many units of its armed forces first to protect the nuclear power plant.
The Ukrainians then dispersed their forces into small, highly mobile units across a wide border area, seizing towns and villages of no military significance. The Russian air force has been effectively used to target Ukrainian armor. The Russian Ministry of Defense has reported daily on how many heavy armored vehicles and troops have been destroyed. As of August 15 the Russians claim to have wiped out 2,640 Ukrainian troops along with 37 tanks and 32 armored personnel carriers.
The New York Times, a strong supporter of the U.S. proxy war by Ukraine against Russia, now says “the ultimate strategy and goals of the invasion, though, are still murky.” The Times is unwilling to admit that the incursion has no chance for any long term gains for Ukraine. Russia meanwhile is bringing more troops from its vast army without depleting its frontline operations. “So far, Ukrainian troops do not seem to be building the kind of entrenched lines seen in eastern Ukraine, where trenches, anti-armored vehicle ditches and anti-tank pyramid obstacles…dot the landscape.” In any case such fortifications take weeks or months to construct. This leaves the increasingly reinforced numbers of Russian forces to mop up the dispersed enemy.
Both the United States government and the European Union claimed to have no prior notice of the Ukrainian Kursk invasion. However, Ukrainska Pravda reported that: “The US Department of Defense announced additional military assistance to Ukraine worth about US$ 125 million on August 9,” just 3 days following the start of the operation. If the US didn’t help plan the invasion, it certainly is giving it strong encouragement.
President Biden, meanwhile, admitted on August 13 that “I have spoken with my staff on a regular basis, probably every four or five hours for the last six or eight days,” about the situation in Kursk, “and we’ve been in direct contact, constant contact with the Ukrainians.”
The desperate nature of this thrust into Russian territory is being made clear on the frontlines in the Donbass region. A fortified line built up by the Ukrainians from the 2014 CIA coup until the 2022 Russian Special Military Operation began has been falling, step by step, to fierce and persistent Russian military fighting. The fighting has also killed and injured so many Ukrainians that they are unable to fill the ranks of their army. Heavy military equipment and munitions are also in short supply, with the Western powers unable to replace the destroyed equipment.
Fighting is especially heavy as Russian forces advance on the towns of Toretsk and Pokrovsk. Even Ukrainians are dismayed that their government sent thousands of battle tested troops into Kursk as their ability to hold positions crumbles.
The New York Times had to admit on August 16 that: “Russian troops are closing in on the strategic eastern Ukrainian town of Pokrovsk.” The Russians “are now about eight miles from Pokrovsk, one of Ukraine’s main defensive strongholds in the Donetsk region.” Pokrovsk “sits on a key road linking several cities that form a defensive arc protecting the part of Donetsk that is still held by Ukraine.” The town had been “turned into a military garrison during the war, with many Ukrainian soldiers staying there to rest after rotation.” It is “also a logistical hub for the Ukrainian Army, given that it sits on a key road linking several Ukrainian-held cities in the region.” Now “the situation is so dire” for the Ukrainians.
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