Russia Invaded, Week 2. State of Play

By streiff | 6:05 PM on August 23, 2024
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CREDIT: Spc. Hedil Hernandez, 113th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment

This is the second week of Ukraine's offensive into Kursk Oblast. I'd like to say the overall purpose is clearer now, but I'd be lying. The one thing I think we can rule out is a smash-and-grab raid. To date, Ukraine's Western allies have been muted about the operation. I think that the Biden national security team still has a case of the squirts and would object if they thought the Ukrainians would keep quiet and do as they're told.

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Ukraine continues to push top-quality troops into the theater while Russia is relying on conscripts and border troops with some Russian Army formations to stem the tide.

This is my previous update: Russia Invaded, Week 1. The State of Play.

CURRENT SITUATION

According to Syrskyi, Ukraine has advanced about 20 miles into Russia; it controls about 500 square miles of territory and has occupied 93 towns and villages.

This animation shows the known front line since the invasion began.

The Russian commander is General Aleksandr Lapin. Lapin was fired for incompetence after presiding over a disastrous attempted crossing of the Siverskyi Donets River in May 2022; see Russia Suspends Most Offensive Operations in Reaction to Ukraine's Surprising Counteroffensive. He also had his ass handed to him by Russian defectors invading Belgorod; see Russia Evacuates Nuclear Weapons Stockpile as 'Dissident' Invasion of Russia Continues. The problem of recycling failed commanders still haunts both sides, though arguably, the Ukrainians are trying to come to grips with it.

Russian units are digging, and the location of those fortifications hints at how much ground the Russians are prepared to give up.

The White House is still expressing befuddlement. 

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OBJECTIVES

Australian General Mick Ryan does a solid job of examining the situation. He sees the objective as a political one.

The first Ukrainian objective is political. Zelenskyy has described how "we’ve already expanded and will continue to expand the circle of those who support a just end to this war. It's essential that Ukraine enters this fall even stronger than before." Ukraine must be stronger as the year tapers off into Winter & it must also be seen as such by its supporters and those who support Russia.

Another element of this political objective is to pierce the Russian bluffing about escalation. #Ukraine has demonstrated, again, that the various red lines projected by the Russian president are nothing but a chimera designed to reinforce Western political timidity about decision-making on the war, and shape Western decisions about provision of weapons.

The creation of a buffer zone is another objective described by Zelenskyy. This appropriates Russian language, which the Russian president used to justify its invasion of #Kharkiv oblast earlier this year. But it is throwing down a gauntlet to the Russians by stating that Ukraine intends to hold at least some of the territory it has seized in #Kursk, and that this will be an ongoing military and political problem for Russia.

Finally, Zelenskyy mentions the Kursk operation being part of a larger effort to destroy Russia’s war-making capacity. While this includes the full range of military operations across #Ukraine, as well as its strikes on strategic energy and military targets in Russia, #Kursk is designed by the Ukrainians to lure the Russians into a fight that they were not expecting on their own territory.

I think Ryan misses one objective: the possibility that the Kursk offensive is designed to draw Russian forces from Donbas and open up the possibility of a Ukrainian offensive in the direction of Occupied Kherson.

As he sees it, the Russians are approaching crunch time to decide how to handle the invasion. It can 1) continue to focus on Donbas, where it is gaining small amounts of ground, 2) reduce the OPTEMPO in Donbas and divert some troops to Kursk, 3) focus on expelling Ukrainian forces from Russia, or 4) equally resource both Donbas and Kursk operations. It could be that  Putin has elected to take what's behind Door #3. Multiple sources are reporting that Putin has ordered Ukraine expelled from Kursk by October 1 and, as I noted in my last update, he has put the head of the FSB in charge of making that happen. I'm not seeing anything that would lead me to believe that such a directive has been given.

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Read the whole thread.

The only thing that concerns me about that analysis is that the effort is too diffuse. So long as Ukraine can't use ATACMS, Storm Shadow, SCALP-EG, or F-16s to carry out deep strikes because of Western limitations, you can't get there from here.

Foreign Policy thinks this is a ploy to gain negotiating power.

Not only has Ukraine lacked negotiation leverage, but Russia has also been successful in promoting, to audiences around the world, its land-for-peace approach to ending this round of the war. As Ukrainian counteroffensives after 2022 largely failed and the Russian war machine slowly but steadily took more territory in Ukraine’s east, another Minsk-type deal limiting Ukrainian territorial integrity and political sovereignty seemed to loom on the horizon.

Kyiv has not only changed the military narrative on the ground but may also be trying to change the narrative on negotiations—from a “land for peace” deal to a “land for land” deal. This puts Putin in a bind: Loss of control over parts of Russia proper is an enormous embarrassment for the Kremlin. But since their illegal annexation by Russia, the Ukrainian territories Putin seeks to keep are also part of the state territory he is obliged to defend. That said, in terms of Russian elite and popular perception, the restoration of Russia’s legitimate state territory will take precedence over continued occupation of recently conquered domains—especially if a land swap opens an avenue to the end of Western sanctions.

In a way, the new Ukrainian strategy may provide an opening for doves in the Russian leadership—assuming they exist and have any influence over Putin—to argue that the annexations should be reversed in order to restore Russia’s territorial integrity. As long as Ukraine can hold on to its captured territories in Russia, there will a strong pressure on Putin to return them under Moscow’s control.

Color me skeptical. We're not seeing any urgency on the part of Russia to respond to the Ukrainian offensive, and Putin has boxed himself in so that anything less than Ukrainian capitulation will be a loss for Russia.

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And there is this intriguing snippet.

Was this border checkpoint annoying or a target of opportunity? Or is the front about to expand again?

I'm still seeing this as a very opaque operation where, as was the popular saying on night convoy operations in the Army, "I don't know where we are but we're making good time."

COMBAT OPERATIONS

All the bridges across the Seym River have been destroyed on made impassable to vehicular traffic. This has created a pocket (brownish area) where a reported 3,000 Russian troops have their back to the river and Ukrainian forces on three sides. 

The pontoon bridges established as workarounds are vulnerable to attack, and Ukrainian FPV drones are damaging irreplaceable bridging equipment.

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That could be a disaster for the Russian Army but never count your chickens, etc. Remember, the Russians were able to extricate many more troops than that and their equipment from the right bank of the Dneiper River when they abandoned most of Kherson.

The Russian military is having a hard time reacting to the invasion because most of it is deployed on the front lines in Occupied Ukraine. Some forces are shifting from the main front to the Kursk front. This is not without cost. The movement takes several days and is subject to Ukrainian attack en route. There is significant attrition of wheeled vehicles during the movement. 

Troops moved to Kursk create vulnerabilities and restrict offensive operations on the main front. The Russians are also deploying troops from other services as ad hoc infantry units and using ill-trained conscripts to try to plug holes.

While the Russians have their problems, so do the Ukrainians. Financial Times has a dubious record in describing issues on the front line and asking low-ranking troops if things suck is guaranteed to get one answer. That said, we know that units deployed in Donbas have been spotted in Kursk. So take this article very guardedly.

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Close Encounters of the Worst Kind

When Your Command Post Gets Overrun

Every army has these guys.

Captured Conscripts

Ka-52 Down

We haven't seen this kind of video in several months.

CIVIL-MILITARY AFFAIRS

Civilian Evacuation Encouraged

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OUTLOOK

As it stands right now, Ukraine faces no effective opposition in Kursk. The Russian forces are virtually untrained and poorly equipped, and they are showing no signs of wanting to fight. That could change if Putin decides to pull units out of Occupied Ukraine and ship them to Kursk.

Absent effective opposition, the real question is how far the Ukrainian Army can go before it risks overextending itself.

The big question remains about Ukraine's intentions. While clearing a buffer zone to prevent Russian artillery strikes on Ukrainian border villages is a good idea, my gut is that Ukraine is devoting more resources than necessary to what could be a minimalist project.

Eventually, the quantity and quality of Russian troops in Kursk will increase. I don't believe there is an October 1 deadline, but neither do I believe that Putin can just leave Kursk occupied by Ukrainian forces. No matter what he wants to do, he's going to be forced to move troops from the frontlines in Occupied Ukraine to address the invasion. Perhaps then we'll get a more definitive understanding of what is happening and why.

Streiff

Former infantry officer, CGSC grad and Army Operations Center alumnus. Also an amateur historian (Colonial America) and a dabbler in historical fiction.
RedState member since 2004. "He would rather pinch off his own head than admit he's wrong" -- Daily Kos. Follow me on Twitter. 

Read more by Streiff
Tags: RUSSIA UKRAINE PUTIN'S WAR

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