Russo-Ukrainian War Thread - Page 706

Not much to post about in the majority of the discussions here.

About Kursk offensive - if we are talking about military aspect of it, then as was said above, it was probably the only possibility for Ukraine to return to mobile mechanized warfare. Both Russia and Ukraine attempted to organize a large mechanized breakthrough through heavily defended parts on the Donbass frontline (Ukraine with counteroffensive in June 2023, Russia with Avdeevka offensive in November 2023), and both failed to mines, drones and precision munitions. Now similar defensive concentration of Russian forces is everywhere from Kharkov to Kherson. Kursk border, however, is much less densely guarded as it was quiet for many months (besides few diversionary-recoinassance groups incursions here and there from both sides), plus there was probably a mindset that Ukraine would not attack Russia proper en masse since major Western powers were repeatedly declaring that their weaponry should not be used on Russian territory, and all previous Ukrainian attacks were under the guise of Legion Free Russia and Russian Volunteer Corps, so not too numerous as both these formations have just few hundred people.

Reason for the initial success, as I see it, is the aforementioned lack of forces and mindset of no major incursion there. Latter, I guess, contributed to the fact, that military defensive installations in Kursk were not completed in time. The location chosen is also make sense, as 1) there is a city of Sumy as staging point, where you can hide your soldiers and vehicles in industrial warehouses and installations 2) there is at least some road network, further to the north it becomes even more scarce, and surrounded by forests and swamps, which hinder down the logistics, especially if few FABs blow up the crucial bridges.

As for development of current situation - it is, of course, still unclear. But now that Russia is pulling air force and heavy artillery it would inevitable become harder to move large mechanized formations. Though in a span of next week Ukraine is most likely going to try anyway, maybe trying to expand foothold in some other border area, but I wouldn't expect some major success like Kursk nuclear plant captured or something.

My guess it would bog down to attritional warfare within two weeks or so and the main question will be where the frontline will be drawn in the region. Reason is - even if there are indeed 5-6 UA brigades in place, it's still not much in terms of defending the terrtiory already captured, much less expanding further, especially if Russia will move large reserves in the area. Soviet military regulations gave a defending battalion a 5 km frontline at most in combined arms operations, and this figure was fairly consistent for the duration of the war, with concentration of both Russian and Ukrainian troops on the frontline on average reflecting that. The perimeter of the Ukrainian held territory is already around 80-90 km and that's within Kursk region only, not including the border between Russia and Ukraine to the north and south. It will require 16-18 battalions to properly defend already, which is basically what they have there.

About Russian forces in the area - the largest currently known formation is 810th Naval Infantry brigade, plus a mix of different forces pulled into the area ("Hades" Akhmat group, "Tag" international brigade (battalion, in fact), units from former Wagner contractors, couple of territorial defence regiments, border guards, conscripts, etc) with large number of artillery and air assets provided to compensate for the lack of manpower (Iskander, Tornado, Pion, tons of UPABs etc.).

Now for the reasons for such offensive, as I see it, there could possible be four of them:

1) Military - Russian Army was slowly but steadily pushing the Donbass front, and whatever measures Ukraine was implementing, they were not able to stop it. Now it's very debatable, who is losing the attritional warfare, as both sides have different arguments for and against, but no one sees a real picture. However Russian command seemed consistent and content with that strategy, while Ukrainian seemed to be not. Hence this move could draw Russian support and reserve assets from other front, to ease pressure, especially on Pokrovsk direction, so Ukraine could entrench further lines of defence there to grind down Russian advance.

2) Internal politics - Ukraine did not see any major success in the war since the capture of Kherson in November 2022. Counteroffensive failed and basically any gains made in a year were made by the Russians. Mantras about millions of dead orcs and 1 to 7 kill ratio also do not work well when it's third year of war, Russian offensive doesn't stop, mobilization age go lower and lower (with hints that it could go down to 18 y/o), people are literally pulled off the streets to be thrown on frontlines and all the while there is no mobilization in Russia since October 2022 (which is supposed to be losing hundred thousands upon hundred thousands). It is already erupting in form of multiple conscription officer's cars burned, hundreds trying to flee the Ukraine through Moldavian border and even protests against mobilization in the city of Kovel . Even Ukrainian own polls show that majority of population (who even bothered to answer the poll) are pro-evading conscription. Ukraine does desperately need victory to gain back internal public support, and Kursk offensive could be used exactly for that.

3) Pressure on Russia - during the course of war Russian public grew accustomed to it, for majority of people it is going on somewhere on the background while they continue to live their lives (many people also had similar experience during Chechnya war, so it's nothing new to them). And Kremlin is working to keep it that way. However major attack on Russia proper isn't something that could be hushed down or overlooked. A lot of people are more attached to it than for the Donbass territory, and they feel that something should be done to prevent something like this. Thing is that this "something" could be either start of the peace talk, or doubling down on military efforts to defeat Ukraine, which also includes mobilization. Kremlin of course, wants to make former on their terms (about that in paragrapgh 4) and to avoid the latter, since Russia needs to sustain it's economy, it doesn't have indefinite cashflow like Ukraine, and mobilization is not only pulling active qualified workforce, but also scares out a lot more of such workforce, who try to flee the country or go undercover during the span of mobilization,
It also answers the question about Russian propaganda take on the Kursk offensive - downplay it as much as possible to not stir up the public. If Kremlin wanted a mobilization - it would be the best situation to spin out, drawing parallels with Citadel operation, showing burning Marders in Kursk region while calling to defend the Motherland, etc. But it's the contrary - small terrorist incursion, all is under control, etc. etc.

4) Negotiations - the most difficult reason to peceive. During most of 2024 there were a lot of talk about possible negotiations from both sides. Ukraine was even pulling back their demands somewhat about returning to 1991 borders (or rather shifting the responsibility for such deal on the population). However after the incursion rhetoric became much more hawkish (Arestovich (and yes, I know he is not an official anymore, but still a popular media figure), for example switched his tone 180 degrees in an instant).
Though Podolyak reportedly acknowledge that the main goal of the offensive is to have a leg in future peace talk by holding a chunk of Russia proper.
Problem is, Kremlin unlikely to go into negotiation from the position of weakness (at least without considerable efforts to fix the situation), and I don't think that Kursk offensive will be strong enough motivator to do so. I had a bet with a friend, who is also involved in political matters, and he was confident that the war would end by the end of 2024, or April 2025 at most (while my bet was at least the end of 2025 or longer). He was very confident up to the poing of incursion, now saying that this move is nail to the coffin of any negotiations in the recent future.