ukraine invade russial kursk
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A tale of two fronts

Among the goals of Ukraine's surprise offensive into the Kursk region on its northeastern border was to relieve the pressure that its undermanned front-line forces were feeling from a relentless Russian advance in the Donetsk region just to the south.

To some extent the strategy has worked, with Russia forced to redeploy some troops from Ukraine back across the border to defend against the Ukrainian operation, which had advanced more than 20 miles into Russian territory, capturing hundreds of poorly trained conscripts and prompting the evacuation of thousands of civilians.

"We have seen some Russian units being redirected from operations in and around Ukraine to the Kursk area, but these are just early reports that we're seeing," John Kirby, White House national security communications adviser, told reporters on Thursday. "I can't say with certainty how many or how many more may go or what their intentions would be."


Comment: For clarity's sake, here is the full military situation. The tiny white circle at the upper right marks Ukraine's "invasion of Russia."

ukraine august 2024

But in an appearance on CNN earlier, Kirby admitted the United States has not seen evidence that the movement of troops has had much of an effect on the eastern front in Ukraine. "It's an active dynamic situation, and we're still watching it. But he has diverted some resources to Kursk. It's not exactly clear with what intent or what effect it's actually going to have," Kirby said. "It doesn't mean that Mr. Putin has given up military operations in the northeast part of Ukraine or even down toward the south, toward places like Zaporizhzhia. There's still active fighting along that front. They still have a lot of manpower and a lot of resources devoted to trying to take back territory that the Ukrainians have reclaimed in recent months in the last year or two."

Pressing its advantage

Russian forces have Ukraine outmanned and outgunned in Donetsk and are closing in on Pokrovsk, a key logistical hub, whose capture could cut Ukrainian supply lines. While moving several brigades from the region to Ukraine, Russian commanders appear to be maintaining the bulk of their forces, hoping for a strategic breakthrough, according to the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War.

"The types of units that are redeploying, and where they are redeploying from, is a strong indicator that the Russian military command is still prioritizing ongoing offensive operations in eastern Ukraine," the ISW said in its latest assessment. "ISW continues to assess that the Russian military command is pulling select elements of Russian irregular units from Donetsk Oblast to address the Ukrainian incursion in Kursk Oblast but will likely be extremely averse to pulling Russian military units engaged in combat from priority sectors in Donetsk Oblast out of concerns about slowing the tempo of Russian operations."

"Russian forces are maintaining their relatively high offensive tempo in Donetsk Oblast, demonstrating that the Russian military command continues to prioritize advances in eastern Ukraine," the ISW assessed.

A sobering report from the front

"We are paying attention to every direction of our state's defense, to all front-line directions," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said this week, specifically mentioning the Donetsk region and Pokrovsk. "We have agreed that we will send additional weapons to our warriors in the Donetsk direction from the next support packages — more than planned," Zelensky said last night, an admission that troops there are under strain.


Comment: What additional weapons? Ukraine has wasted billions of dollars worth of supplies on lunatic operations just like this one. The West has nothing left to give. And even if the warehouses were overflowing, Ukraine no longer has the manpower to use them.


"We don't have enough people to do our job properly," the commander of the 21st Battalion of the Separate Presidential Brigade told the Wall Street Journal in a sobering report from the front lines. The commander, who goes by the call sign Kucher, said that in the spring, his battalion had roughly the same number of men as the Russians, but now they are at a 5-to-1 disadvantage.

"If we're supposed to have five or six people in a position, we'll have two or three," said a 45-year-old army major, who told the Wall Street Journal team that his unit was so short-handed that cooks, mechanics, and other rear personnel were being deployed to trenches. "It's a matter of time before the enemy finds a weak spot."

Thanks to its numerical advantage in men and materiel, "Russian forces have gained territory at a faster rate this summer than at any point since the first weeks of the war," the Wall Street Journal reported, quoting one commander as saying, "The Russians have more everything than us — more people, more guns, more shells, more ammunition. ... In the end, it makes us withdraw."