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Date: August 10, 2024 at 11:38:26
From: ryan, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Ukraine’s surprise attack into Russia really pisses pootie off... |
URL: https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4821208-ukraines-surprise-attack-into-russia-ups-ante-for-putin/ |
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Ukraine’s surprise attack into Russia ups ante for Putin
by Brad Dress - 08/10/24 6:00 AM ET
Ukrainian forces pushed into Russia this week to attack a border region in a stunning counteroffensive that comes after Kyiv has been largely on the defensive for the past year and a half.
The Ukrainian attack, the first from a foreign nation on Russia’s European soil since World War II, has set off an emergency in the Kursk region bordering Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy province.
Ukrainian troops and armored vehicles have advanced at least 20 miles and are continuing to press deeper into Kursk on the fourth day of battle, capturing dozens of Russian border guards, taking several towns and surrounding the city of Sudzha, where fighting continues.
The surprise attack has infuriated Russian President Vladimir Putin, who called the incursion a “major provocation,” sparking fears of a potential Kremlin escalation not only in the war against Ukraine, but also with the U.S., the primary supporter of Kyiv.
Although it’s unclear how the offensive will proceed, Ukraine has successfully changed the narrative of the war by breaking into Russia, said Alena Kudzko, vice president for policy and programming at the think tank GLOBSEC.
“Ukrainians are trying hard to change the narrative of the war. Before [Kursk], there was a feeling that the war has become rather predictable, and on many sides, the war was already perceived as frozen,” she said. “By doing this attack, Ukraine actually has managed to demonstrate that there’s really space for making this war unpredictable, that there’s space for surprising Russia.”
The Kursk offensive is reminiscent of the 2022 Kharkiv and Kherson counteroffensives, in which high-speed Ukrainian maneuvers caught Russia by surprise.
U.S. officials have supported Ukraine’s attack. Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh on Thursday told reporters Kursk was consistent with Washington’s policy to defend against Russian border attacks and not an escalation in the war.
“We don’t feel like this is escalatory,” she said. “Ukraine is doing what it needs to do to be successful on the battlefield.”
Kyiv has struggled to fend off Russian attacks for months across the 600-mile front line, in a grinding war of attrition that has favored a larger Russia.
Even with the Kursk offensive, Russian forces are continuing to attack their primary targets, in the northeastern Kharkiv region that neighbors Sumy and in the eastern Donetsk province.
Russian troops have made slow and incremental gains, but are still pushing toward key objectives, including the key Donetsk city of Chasiv Yar. Seizing that city could give Moscow the high ground and allow for a push toward the twin cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, which have long been in Russia’s sights in the goal to capture all of Donetsk.
Russia’s Kharkiv offensive is also continuing, though its troops have yet to capture the town of Vovchansk that would open the way to the city of Kharkiv and appear to be slowing down in the offensive.
Ukraine’s incursion has put pressure on Russia to divert troops and defend its borders, said Federico Borsari, a fellow with the transatlantic defense and security program at the Center for European Policy Analysis.
“It’s now up to the Russians what they want to do with this offensive in Kursk,” he said. “I think the Russians will try to beat the pressure, even though this means [possibly] giving Ukraine some options elsewhere.”
Still, he added it wasn’t clear yet at this stage whether the attack would have any dramatic effect on the front lines, where Ukraine remains on its back foot, trying to fend off Russian attacks with depleting manpower.
While months of delays of U.S. aid damaged Ukraine’s defenses, billions of dollars of American weapons and equipment are now pouring onto the battlefield.
New weapons include F-16s, a small batch of which arrived in Ukraine this week to help defend the skies. Air superiority is crucial to high-speed maneuver warfare, but it’s not clear if F-16s have been used or were part of the calculation in Kursk.
The aid has not addressed all of Ukraine’s defensive problems. And while Ukraine has lowered its draft age from 27 to 25 — which allows it to call up more troops — it won’t solve a severe manpower shortage for months or longer.
The Kursk offensive is likely an effort to offset those difficulties, said Rafael Loss, a policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
“The most significant problem for Ukraine at this moment is manpower,” he said. “Maybe news about a daring maneuver could motivate some more Ukrainian volunteers to sign up. I’m not sure it’s going to be fundamentally changing individuals’ risk calculus, but it might start to change the tone of the discussions around volunteering.”
High-ranking Ukrainian officials have not acknowledged any attack in Kursk, though Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his advisers have made cryptic messages all but confirming it.
“War is war, with its own rules, where the aggressor inevitably reaps corresponding outcomes,” wrote Mykhailo Podolyak, a top adviser to Zelensky, on the social platform X.
Ukraine appears to be attacking in two main directions: toward Sudzha and another district just west, Korenevsky. But troops appear to be buzzing around several parts of the region and forcing Russia to respond in multiple arenas.
Ukraine will now have to face what it does with the territory it holds in Russia and whether that distracts from defensive efforts on the front lines.
Tomasz Blusiewicz, a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, said Ukraine is likely to withdraw from Kursk, but only after forcing Russia to move multiple brigades, which would exploit positions on the frontline.
“Now they have to move. And the Russians are bad at this. They are bad at logistics,” he said. “It was a brilliant move by Ukraine. … They have already achieved a huge success by forcing Russia to move its troops, by demonstrating that Russia is defenseless in other areas. It’s a huge prestige blow to Putin.”
Russia has sent reinforcements to Kursk and is vowing it will succeed in repelling Ukrainian forces.
Maj. Gen. Apty Alaudinov, Russia’s deputy head of the main military-political directorate, told state-run news agency TASS that “the situation is hard, but it is not critical” in Kursk and that Ukraine could not avoid an inevitable collapse on the front lines.
“The enemy can be stopped and destroyed,” he said. “As soon as we destroy these resources, I am more than sure that the enemy will have nothing to counter us with.”
Rather than hold territory, Ukraine’s plan may be to attack strategic resources in Russia, including equipment and areas used to mount attacks. Capturing prisoners and territory can also be used in negotiations and prisoner swaps.
Ukrainian forces also seized a gas metering station in Kursk and have threatened a nearby Russian nuclear power plant.
Brock Bierman, visiting senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund, said the offensive was strategic in targeting a region of Russia with important assets that Ukraine can destroy and remove as a threat.
It’s also “a way to disperse the front lines” and force Russia to “reallocate resources” to protect its assets, he added.
“Now they’re going to have to think about how that allocation is, not only in that particular region, but along a very, very long border,” he said.
The Kursk offensive has forced Russian citizens to face the direct consequences of the war. Before the attack, Ukraine’s strikes into Russia were limited to the occasional drone attack on oil depots or strategic assets. They have in the past few months begun using American-made weapons, including long-range artillery, to hit targets near the border.
But now, Russians in Kursk have been forced to evacuate their homes and several people have been killed.
The war has already been costly for Russian forces, with more than 1,000 casualties in May and June, according to the U.K. Ministry of Defense.
Some Russians have blamed the government and military for failing to anticipate the Kursk attack or adequately defending against the incursion.
Russian military blogger Rybar, who closely supports the Russia’s military goals and is a retired press officer in the Kremlin, faulted Moscow because Ukraine had been “accumulating forces for months.”
“For two months, all the information was sent to useless higher headquarters. There was enough time to make an appropriate decision,” Rybar said in a Telegram post. “The price of this is the forces of the Ukrainian formations that entered Sudzha and Korenevo.”
Putin retains a tight grip on his country and dissent is generally crushed. But the Kursk attacks threaten to unravel his narrative that the war is under control.
Kudzko, from the GLOBSEC think tank, said she didn’t expect any big domestic changes in Russia but also stressed it would add more pressure on the Kremlin.
“There will be more dissatisfaction among the population against the Kremlin and against the government,” she said. “Even the people who, in principle, say we support the war, would not be happy about the consequences of this war on their lives.”
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Responses:
[55100] [55109] [55124] |
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Date: August 12, 2024 at 15:36:15
From: ryan, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Ukraine’s surprise attack into Russia really pisses pootie off... |
URL: https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4824231-russia-evacuates-kursk-putin-ukraine/ |
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cry me a river pootie...
Russia evacuates 180,000 civilians as Putin decries attack in Kursk region
by Brad Dress - 08/12/24 5:38 PM ET
Russia has evacuated some 180,000 people from Kursk as President Vladimir Putin decried a Ukrainian offensive in the border region and accused Kyiv of seeking to “create discord” and “instill fear” in his country.
Putin on Monday held a security meeting with the governors that oversee border regions with Ukraine and promised the Ukrainian troops marching miles across his country would be wiped out by a stiff Russian response.
The acting governor of Kursk, Alexei Smirnov, said Ukraine has advanced more than 7 miles into the region in an area about 24 miles wide, taking about 28 settlements, according to independent Russian outlet Novaya Gazeta. In Kursk, 120,000 people have evacuated and another 60,000 are expected to leave soon.
In remarks published by the Kremlin, Putin said Ukraine had invaded Kursk in order to grab territory for negotiations but that he refused to negotiate with people who “attack civilians and civilian infrastructure, or pose threats to nuclear power facilities.”
“The leaders of the Kiev regime are not only perpetrating crimes against the Russian people but are also, in effect, pursuing the destruction of their own citizens, the Ukrainian people, whom they evidently no longer view as their own,” Putin said. “The adversary will undoubtedly face a strong response, and all the objectives we have set will certainly be achieved.”
Ukrainian forces, who broke into Kursk in a surprise offensive on Aug. 6, now control more than 600 square miles of Russian territory, according to a Telegram post from Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who acknowledged for the first time Sunday that his forces were operating in Russia, said Kyiv would continue to work to “ensure peace.”
“Russia brought war to others, and now it is coming home,” Zelensky said in his nightly video address.
Ukrainian troops are fighting to gain control of several major towns in Kursk, including Sudzha and another town just northwest, Korenevo.
Russian forces are struggling to beat back the Ukrainian advance, even with Putin redeploying forces to push them out.
Russian military bloggers also reported that Ukraine appears to have begun digging trenches and other defenses in Kursk, a sign that they are preparing to hold territory, at least for the time being.
Kyiv’s surprise incursion comes as Russian forces are continuing to press forward across the 600-mile front in eastern Ukraine.
Putin on Monday said Ukraine’s Kursk offensive was intended to distract from those efforts but claimed Russian troops were increasing their advances and would not be deterred.
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Responses:
[55109] [55124] |
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Date: August 13, 2024 at 14:19:27
From: ryan, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Ukraine’s surprise attack into Russia really pisses pootie off... |
URL: https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4826388-ukraine-offensive-russia-kursk/ |
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Ukraine deals blow to Putin’s narrative with Kursk offensive
by Brad Dress - 08/13/24 4:58 PM ET
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Russian Defense Ministry Press Service photo via Associated Press
Russian marine assault team members ride motorcycles toward a Ukrainian position at an undisclosed location on Aug. 12, 2024.
Ukraine’s offensive inside Russia’s Kursk region has opened a new chapter in the war that is threatening Moscow’s advantage across the 600-mile eastern front while redrawing the boundaries of the battle.
Russian forces are struggling to beat back Ukrainian troops who are now digging into the territory they grabbed in a widely praised counteroffensive.
A week after the attack, Kyiv faces the questions of how and how long it will hold onto the seized territory as Russian President Vladimir Putin promises to push Ukraine back and punish them for the incursion.
One problem plaguing Ukraine is a manpower shortage. Though the country lowered the draft age earlier this year, it will take time to replenish troops, and that could impact Ukraine’s ability to hold territory in Kursk.
“It looks as if they want to hold on to this territory as long as they can,” said Angela Stent, a senior nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institution. Their success depends on their ability to supply troops, she said.
“They’re in the new mobilization drive, but they have to train the soldiers to get enough of the troops to stay there,” Stent said.
Ukraine has taken around 386 square miles of Kursk, according to Kyiv, and is threatening Russia from multiple directions, notably around the key city of Sudzha, which Ukrainian forces may have already captured. Ukraine continues to advance in directions northwest and southeast of Sudzha.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reported Tuesday that 74 settlements have been taken in Kursk.
Russian officials have said 180,000 people are evacuating from Kursk, which has been in a state of emergency since the Aug. 6 offensive.
Putin has tasked the Federal Security Service (FSB), the Russian national guard and the military with restoring order to Kursk.
But several experts said Putin faces challenges in winning back territory.
“This war has left Russia’s borders weak, the army engaged in Ukraine and not immediately available to defend border regions, and FSB border troops not supported,” said Dara Massicot, a senior fellow in the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, in a thread on the social platform X. “The Russian system’s instinct will be to overcorrect and swing harshly at Kursk.”
Serhiy Grabskyi, a reserve Ukrainian army colonel, said “Russia simply does not have a defensive plan” for its border regions, which are large and hard to defend.
“We found there is no plan in place,” he said. “It’s a huge disadvantage for Russians to have such big territories, because they are not able to control those territories.”
Stent, from the Brookings Institution, said Russia was “so focused on the east” and the battles on Ukraine’s front that Moscow failed to account for a defense mission.
“This shows us that there’s a lack of organization, there was a lack of proper preparation to this,” she said. “Maybe the Russians should have thought that the Ukrainians might pull off something like that, or they’ve underestimated the Ukrainians.”
Putin on Monday vowed a “strong response” as he referred to the Kursk attack as a plot to “create discord and division within our society, to instill fear, and to undermine the unity and cohesion of the Russian people.”
He also used the opportunity to blame the West for the incursion, part of his claims that the U.S. and NATO seek the destruction of Russia.
White House national security spokesperson John Kirby hit back on Putin’s remarks in a Monday call with reporters.
“Make no mistake about it, this is Putin’s war against Russia, and if he doesn’t like it, if it’s making him a little uncomfortable, then there’s an easy solution,” he said. “He can just get the hell out of Ukraine and call it a day.”
The U.S. has supported the Ukrainian attack into Kursk, saying it is consistent with the Biden administration’s policy to allow Ukraine to defend itself against cross-border attacks. Kursk borders the northeastern Ukrainian region of Sumy, which neighbors Ukraine’s Kharkiv province, where Russian forces are still trying to advance.
Ukraine is unlikely to try and hold onto the territory in Russia for a long period of time, even amid speculation that seized land could be used in negotiations.
Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi said there were no plans for permanent occupation.
“Unlike Russia, Ukraine doesn’t need something that belongs to someone else,” he said in remarks shared by state-run media. “Ukraine has no interest in taking over the territory of Kursk region, but we do want to protect the lives of our people.”
Instead, Ukraine will likely hold out until a significant number of Russian troops are redeployed to defend Kursk and cause as much damage as possible.
“Now they can try to dig in [for] a stout defense themselves, and really force the Russians to work and take a lot of casualties to take back the territory,” said John Hardie, deputy director of the Russia program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
But Ukraine also faces a risk, he added.
“The risk is the Kursk offensive tying down more Ukrainian forces and potentially sucking in more resources than it perhaps was initially intended to,” he said, “especially if the offensive operation goes on for longer than was initially planned.”
It’s unclear if Russia will redeploy a sizable number of troops from Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, where most of the fighting rages. But if they are forced to, Kyiv would consider that a major victory and potentially exploit it on the front lines.
Matthew Savill, director of military sciences at the London-based think tank Royal United Services Institute, said the Kursk offensive has not yet “resulted in the Russians slowing their advances around the Donbas.”
“This is a risky operation if the aim is more than a raid to disorientate Russian defenders,” he said in a recent written analysis. “The main risk is that the Ukrainians choose to try and consolidate and hold ground that lengthens the front line, where the Russians already have a personnel advantage, without the ability to reinforce and defend against Russian counter-attacks.”
One particular threat is Russian glide bombs, he noted, which have caused widespread damage among Ukrainian forces on the front lines.
Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak also said another key goal of the offensive is to damage Russian ground assets used in border attacks. While Ukraine has done so with long-range strikes, an incursion like Kursk can cause more damage, he said.
“This is exactly what Ukraine can do and what is needed to protect the population of Ukraine in the border regions,” Podolyak wrote on X.
It may take several more days or even weeks for Russia to restore order in Kursk as command and control operations get running.
Eventually, however, Russia will probably muster enough forces to root them out.
Even if Ukraine withdraws, it has already demonstrated that Russia’s borders are weak and has dealt a blow to Putin’s narrative of the war, while threatening other neighboring regions such as Bryansk or Belgorod, said Grabskyi, the reserve colonel.
“Our criteria of effectiveness of battle is elimination, destroying of enemy troops, not capturing and keeping those territories,” he said. “If we would be able to continue our raid, we will do that, if not, OK, we will withdraw. No problem at all. And we will find another weak point in [the] Russian border, and will attack.”
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Date: August 15, 2024 at 16:14:45
From: ryan, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Ukraine’s surprise attack into Russia really pisses pootie off... |
URL: https://thehill.com/newsletters/defense-national-security/4830352-ukraine-seizes-major-town-in-russia/ |
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Ukraine presses forward in Kursk
Zelensky also said that Ukraine has captured more than 80 settlements in the Kursk region, which his troops advanced into on Aug. 6.
“I thank every warrior of ours who ensures all this,” Zelensky said in a video address.
Russian officials disputed that Ukraine had taken complete control of the town, with Maj. Gen. Apti Alaudinov, head of the Main Military-Political Directorate of the Russian Defense Ministry, going on national television.
“There are still some of our formations remaining in Sudzha,” Alaudinov said, according to state-run media.
Ukrainian officials say troops have taken around 386 square miles of Kursk since the war began and have been fighting around Sudzha for more than a week.
Sudzha will give Ukrainian forces a key foothold in Kursk as Kyiv looks to divert Russian troops from the front lines of eastern Ukraine, take out military assets and capture Russian prisoners.
The Pentagon said Thursday that it has noticed some Russian troops redeploy from eastern Ukraine but was not able to provide any details.
Zelensky adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said forces were seeking to destroy Russian military facilities, pushing Moscow’s troops away from areas that allow for strikes into Ukraine and creating a buffer zone in Kursk.
“While Russia deliberately attacked Ukraine to kill civilians and occupy its territory, which is an unconditional war crime, Ukraine is waging an exclusively defensive war, including on the aggressor’s territory to ensure the protection of its own population,” he wrote on X.
The Kursk offensive is the first time that a foreign army has invaded Russian soil since World War II, and it has redrawn the battle lines while putting more pressure on Putin, whose troops have struggled to restore order.
Nataliya Bugayova, a non-resident Russia Fellow at the Institute for the Study of War, said the U.S. should be “building on momentum afforded by Ukraine’s operation in Kursk.”
“Russia’s military failures are a lynchpin that makes other actions to degrade Russia’s military capability more effective,” she wrote in an analysis, calling for Washington to lift restrictions on American weapons and surge arms deliveries.
The U.S. was not made aware of the Kursk offensive before it happened, Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters.
“We are working with the Ukrainians to better understand their objectives,” she said, adding they have often modified weapons deliveries for Kyiv as needed and they “reserve that right to continue to do that.”
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