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August 8, 2024 - 7:00am
“Russia does not control the border,” said Andrii Kovalenko, the head of the Centre for Countering Disinformation at Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council, on Tuesday. “Russian soldiers are lying about the controllability of the situation in the Kursk region”, he claimed.
This startling announcement came in response to one of the largest incursions into Russian territory of the war so far. The Russian Ministry of Defence reported that up to 300 Ukrainian troops this week attacked Moscow’s positions near Nikolaevo-Darino and Oleshnya in the Kursk region of Russia. While the MoD was emphatic that the situation on the border was “not critical” and the Ukrainians had been “repelled” — additionally refuting reports circulating on Ukrainian Telegram channels that Russia’s troops had abandoned their positions — it yesterday admitted that fighting is ongoing. Other reports indicate that Moscow lost two combat helicopters in the surprise raid, while prominent Russian military blogger Rybar claimed that Ukraine had captured Nikolaevo-Darino, taken two other settlements and almost surrounded Russian troops in Oleshnya.
In terms of how this serves Kyiv in the broader war, perhaps the most significant effect will be psychological. The attack is, in every sense of the word, striking. Seeing Russian President Vladimir Putin forced to publicly address the incident and refer to it as a “major provocation” demonstrates that Kyiv’s forces are still capable of taking not only the initiative but also of taking Moscow by surprise. This will provide a much-needed morale boost to Kyiv’s weary forces and to its — also weary — allies, both desperate for any signs that Kyiv can still succeed on the battlefield.
Whereas previous raids into Russian border areas were carried out by Ukraine-allied groups, this one seems to have been conducted by Kyiv’s military forces themselves and images of evacuating Kursk residents will give Ukraine the further psychological benefit of proving it can still unsettle the Russian population and stop them getting too comfortable during a time of war.
However, the military value of this daring incursion is far less certain. It may be that, after Russia’s cross-border incursion into Kharkiv back in May, Ukraine was eager to stop Moscow from attempting a similar move into the Sumy region. Ukrainian military sources described this week’s raid as “preventative” and claimed that Russia had been massing 75,000 troops on the border. An alternative explanation is that Kyiv is trying to force Moscow to divert forces from other parts of the frontline where it is enjoying greater strategic gains. However, such a strategy would be ill-advised, considering how overstretched Ukrainian forces already are.
Even if the raid does constitute a long-awaited, short-term victory for Ukraine, it is unlikely to turn the overall tide of the war. Open source research suggests that the territory seized by Moscow since early May is nearly twice as much as Kyiv recovered during its summer offensive last year, with Russian forces having intensified their gains in the eastern Donetsk region in recent weeks.
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SubscribeThe significance of a battle at Kursk will not be lost on either side.
Largest tank battle ever fought, from memory. That won’t be the case this time around.
I don’t think this Battle of Kursk will have any significance, even psychologically. Fewer than 300 enemy soldiers fighting a nuisance action that has no strategic or even tactical significance is far different from the huge battle that stopped the Germans in their tracks in 1943. With more than 6,000 tanks, 2,000,000 troops, and 4,000 aircraft, some say the Battle of Kursk was the largest battle in history.
I must admit, though, that I didn’t make the connection of this Kursk battle to the big one until I read your comment. Maybe, as you say, the connection will have more significance to the Russians and Ukrainians who will have a better memory of it than me.
If the raid embarrasses the Russian government, and at the same time kills Russian soldiers and scares Russian civilians, it is a success by any metric.
At the cost of substantial losses in materiel and experienced soldiers – neither of which Ukraine can afford?
The West should be paying the bills. If they don’t they will have to deal with Russia directly soon enough.
Do you mean paying the funeral bills for all the Ukrainians who have died fighting this US proxy war?
No, I mean paying the bills for the military hardware Ukraine needs. As to the “proxy war” comment, it is entirely appropriate that the West should fight a proxy war against Russia. Apart from an uneasy alliance during WW2 and a brief period when Gorbachev was in charge, Russia has been “the enemy”” for the last 100 years, and will be “the enemy” for the next 100 years. Money spent weakening it is money well spent.
There is no kind of bill the West could pay that would compensate for thousands upon thousands of Ukrainian lives wasted by insisting it continue a war it cannot win. That cost could have been contained by peace agreement early in the war, when Russia didn’t have the leverage it has now. The West didn’t want that, and ordered it quashed, preferring Ukrainians go on paying the cost of their own slaughterhouse.
I think you’ll find the West were desperate for the war not to start. Many efforts were made to negotiate – we all remember Macron and that long table. Basically Putin wants the failed Soviet Union back. And he doesn’t care how many Russians or Ukrainians die fighting for his egotistical, vanity project.
This is utter nonsense. It is a matter of public record that the opposite is the case. Merkel and Hollande, the implicit guarantors of the Minsk Accords, publicly confirmed that Ukraine and West never had any intention of implementing the Accords – even though they were binding in international law – and only saw them as an opportunity for Ukraine to rearm and prepare for war.
Zelensky was elected by a landslide on the manifesto of implementing the Minsk Accords and resolving the civil war in Donbas. Once he was in office, the West did nothing to support him to resist his warmongering extremists.
Russia proposed negotiations in December 2021, but NATO rejected any thought of negotiations – as Stoltenberg, the Secretary-General of NATO, publicly bragged.
I could go on. And on. And on.
It wouldn’t have mattered if negotiations had been held and an agreement reached. Putin would simply have torn it up when the mood took him (in the same way his spiritual mentor, the German guy from the 1930s, did).
Martin, you’ve made a few bold pronouncements, yet offer no reason to assume you’ve made even the slightest study of the region and its history, of Russian history, of Putin, of treaties. It’s so easy to make declarations, including the clichéd, reflexive comparison to Hitler.
An informed opinion demonstrates some understanding of context, some ability to make distinctions, which implies at least some time and effort put into learning about a subject. Even if I disagree with a conclusion, I respect the initiative.
Russians have never, at any point in history, cared about how many of their own people have died in their military adventures. That is what makes them such a difficult enemy.
The Forc… er, Russophobia is strong with this one.
Putin would never abide by any peace agreement, no matter what it said. He is a war mongering tyrant.
Arent they paying the bills? Much of the aid is financial.
And where do you envisage that will happen?
Baltic States, probably. NATO will have to commit directly to that conflict.
I agree. We owe Ukraine a huge debt. We sent them into a hopeless war on our behalf. When they wanted to make peace at reasonable terms early on, in March 2022, we told them to fight on, promising them “what it takes” – when we should have known already then that we did not have “what it takes”.
Ukraine has lost its most valuable lands, the flower of its youth, its national wealth, and its infrastructure, all for us – as both US politicians and several former Ukrainian government officials freely admit.
We have an enormous moral debt toward Ukraine.
What it lost (because it stupidly gave them up), is its nukes. I doubt even a lunatic like Putin would have invaded if there was a chance of mushroom clouds over Moscow and St Petersburg.
And yet the West risks mushroom clouds over Europe…
They were never theirs.
There is no “we” about it. The West’s ruling class wanted the war, the rest of us just wanted to get on with our lives in peace, as presumably did most Ukrainians.
It’s not a success by the metric that really matters: the long term one. Ukraine may win occasional, limited, battles, but it cannot win the war.
Yer we heard all this a few years ago when we were told Russia would take Ukraine in 3-days.
Russia didn’t assemble a large enough force to “take” all of Ukraine…therefore it didn’t intend to do so.
In any event it couldn’t hold all of Ukraine. It can however hold those areas which prefer to be part of Russia.
Apparently it brought enough nice parade uniforms for its troops though, as it was sure they would be welcomed by the Ukrainians.
A few years ago only propagandists said that. U.S., E.U., and NATO officials, and the mainstream media who parroted the prediction uncritically.
It was immediately considered absurd by people knowledgeable of the situation and independent of official constraints.
It’s a war of attrition. The Ukraine can’t win that kind of war. The balance of soldiers is overwhelmingly Russian, who are far better equipped with weaponry, which is why Ukrainian casualties are much higher than Russian. Thus Ukraine has to forcibly draft men to fight; they understand that they’d be cannon fodder in a bloodbath. Most of the Ukrainian electric grid has been destroyed. And so on.
I seem to vaguely remember something about Russia getting people out of prisons to fight, because “the flower of its manhood” away overseas rather than fight. The Ukrainians fight because the Russian will torture, rape and murder them if it captures them. The Russians have no similar “skin in the game”.
Martin, your response doesn’t address the points made, which have to do with the nature of the war, one of attrition, and how the balance of manpower and equipment involved overwhelmingly favour Russia.
It’s about acknowledging numbers and the long-term trend. That trend isn’t a surprise to independent observers; it’s been obvious over the last two years, especially so after Ukraine’s disastrous attempted counter-offensive last year.
There is no question that Ukrainian men are resisting conscription, hiding from conscription squads, being forced to fight. Those squads exist due to the extremely high fatalities and injuries sustained by Ukrainian forces. Even mainstream media acknowledges this now.
That Ukraine has been losing, and continues to lose this war of attrition is only a surprise to those who rely on mainstream media, which has published absurdly optimistic, unquestioned propaganda handed to it by officials.
Again, even mainstream media has started to acknowledge more of this reality as the evidence becomes too obvious even for it to ignore.
As for “skin in the game,” the Russians have a great deal. It’s important to understand the history of this region. NATO in Ukraine is considered an existential threat to Russia. It’s not a mere geopolitical game for them.
You should stop believing Russian propaganda lies. There are far more Russians dying than Ukrainians, and Russian weapons have not shown themselves to be superior.
And you get this “information” from where exactly?
Micael, I confess that I have believed the notorious Russian propagandist Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi, Ukraine’s commander-in-chief since February 2024, who said on July 24, 2024 in an interview in The Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jul/24/i-know-we-will-win-and-how-ukraines-top-general-on-turning-the-tables-against-russia
We await disclosure of your sources, free of propaganda and more reliable on the balance of manpower and equipment than the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian military.
Again, this is a war of attrition. The goal is to wear out the opposition’s military capacity. Russia has an overwhelming advantage in scale of troops and equipment. The result was predicted by informed independent observers such as military analysts and scholars.
It can if the West commits to supporting it. Were it me, I would provide Ukraine with enough long range missiles to turn every Russian oil facility into an inferno. Lets see how the Russian economy goes if it doesn’t get any money from the sale of hydrocarbons (because lord knows it produces very little else anyone wants).
Your plan is a war crime. You sound a lot like Johnny von Neumann, who wanted to use nuclear weapons to bomb the Soviet Union into oblivion in 1960. “If you say why not bomb them tomorrow, I say why not today? If you say today at 5 o’clock, I say why not 1 o’clock?”
I don’t think you actually understand what a “war crime” is, do you ?
If you did, you might be better checking over Russia’s track record. Both in Ukraine and over the last 100 odd years.
Yes, I understand what a war crime is. I’m talking about Article 51(5)(b) of Additional Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions, which prohibits: “An attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.”
Ukraine cannot attack civilian infrastructure like Russian oil facilities unless the attack is to gain a concrete and direct military advantage, and destroying Russia’s economy is not that.
Russia and Israel play fast and loose with the Geneva Convention provisions all the time, and they should be called on it. But that Russia has committed war crimes does not justify Ukraine committing them in return.
It is not a war crime to destroy militarily important resources.
But what Martin M suggests is to cripple Russia’s economy by turning all the oil facilities in the country into an inferno. That’s a classic war crime, comparable to Russia’s targeting of Ukraine’s electrical power infrastructure. Ukraine can attack Russia’s oil infrastructure for a military advantage, but not to destroy its economy.
Surely the destruction of Russia’s economy has military advantage? That strategy has been adopted in every war for the past 150 years.
Bombing economic assets is a war crime? Obviously bombing maternity hospitals (like the Russians do) isn’t though.
Do you see a path to victory for Ukraine, with this incursion being a small step along that path? I don’t, but I’m interested in hearing from those who do.
Yes, provided the West backs them. As I say above the first step is “sufficient long range missiles to destroy ALL Russia’s oil production infrastructure”. Further steps are things like agreeing with China to look away if China seizes Russian land in the East (land which China has long coveted).
You seriously think China trusts the West?
They must realise that the West hates Russia way more than it hates them.
The problem with roping in China to further the Empire’s designs is that the Empire-controlling Neocons have openly said that they need to first eliminate Russia so as to be able to fully concentrate on the real target, i.e. China.
The mind-boggling conceit is to think the Chinese are incapable of reading the Neocon’s openly proclaimed intentions, and would willingly participate in their own destruction (mind you, the Europeans are, but Neocons have spent the last two generations seeding European politics with their minions, something they didn’t do in China, and were thwarted from accomplishing in Russia by that evil mastermind Putin).
One is reminded of the Schlieffen Plan – a blitzkrieg in the West to eliminate France, so that Germany could fully concentrate on the real enemy, Russia. The Neocons seem to have accomplished the feat of cloning the fate of the Schlieffen Plan.
China is an “economic enemy”. Russia is a “real enemy”. The West should put out a narrative that runs “If you invade Taiwan, we will hit you with everything we have. If you invade Russia, we couldn’t care less”.
It’s amazing how many ‘experts’,sitting at home, or in a cafe, no doubt a double capa-espresso- demi latte, and hot buttered croissant sitting in front of them as they tip-tap away, solving the worlds problems, there are. If only the real soldiers and politicians stood aside, the war could have been over years ago. But here we are, 108 years later, with our own “lions lead by donkeys” insolvable conundrum.
And these chatterboxes even get money for it. Our money!
PS. The perfect example of non biased author
Bethany Elliott is a journalist writing on Russian society, politics and foreign policy.
thecritic.co.uk:
Don’t boycott Russian culture
It damages rather than defends civilisation
Looks like another pointless propaganda diversion by Kiev as the real front continues to collapse.
Ukraine would be better advised to deploy it’s experienced combat troops to bolster it’s (less than eager by informed accounts) forced conscript ‘army’ that will have to take to the trenches in the Autumn.
Ukraine will not win with drones alone
Doesn’t Russia also have a conscript army ? It’s certainly a long way from being a professional one based on the past 2.5 years and seems to be mainly conscripts. Not sure what your point is here.
Unbelivable, you are a Putin-boo as well as a gender critical bigot. You are a caricature of alt-right stupidity.
I tried to find evidence that Ms. Elliott is qualified to speak on military strategy or combat. Came up empty. Appears she’s just another latte-sipping expert who’s never left her sterile bubble.
Indeed.
She seems quite unaware of the continual erosion of Russian air defences by Ukraine. Or the disappearance of the Black Sea fleet. It’s been quite clear for some time that Ukraine could effectively wipe out Russian air defences in the conflict zone and well into Russia if given the go ahead by the US. It’s only US caution preventing this now.
There are people on here claiming that the West has caused many Ukrainian deaths by supporting them. The reality is actually that the needless Ukrainian deaths are a result of the West’s hesitant support and lack of commitment.
There is no “tide of war” [in Russia’s favour] here as she pretends – it’s basically the same stalemate it’s been for most of the war.
Therre really is no cure for the pro-Russian idiocy that dominates comments on these articles. Deluded fools, the lot of you !
Point of order: The Black Sea Fleet hasn’t “disappeared”. It’s just that it is now at the bottom of the Black Sea, rather than floating on top of it.
Not quite correct. What remains is apparently now at Nonorossisysk, a good safe distance from Crimea and where it can do very little. “Disappeared” is a combination of sunk, currently out of order and ran away.
Arent they paying the bills? Much of the aid is financial.
The balance of the war is already in Ukraine’s favor. This moves it further in their favor.
Bwahahaha! Not.
Putinism is one of the many modern ideologies that convince their victims to trust the ideology rather than their own lying eyes. The day the Ukrainians entered Moscow, this author would still insist that that would not help them win the war.