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August 12, 2024 - 7:00am
Earlier this week, Ukraine launched its largest incursion into Russian territory since the February 2022 invasion. The ongoing foray prompted Russian president Vladimir Putin to call an emergency meeting of his national security council to contain and roll it back under the auspices of a “counter-terrorism operation”, which loosens restrictions and frees up additional resources for domestic territorial defence.
The implementation of a counter-terrorism programme in the Kursk, Belgorod and Bryansk regions bordering Ukraine enables authorities to tap phones and restrict the flow of people and vehicles to stem the crisis. It is a sign that the Russian leadership was caught off guard by the incursion, with authorities scrambling to address it. It is also a sign of Ukraine taking ownership of such raids. Previously, Kyev would hide behind some degree of plausible deniability, as in the case of the March 2023 assault. Here Russian dissident militants, including but not limited to far-Right elements belonging to the Russian Volunteer Corps, joined an assortment of anti-Moscow rebels from Chechnya. Moreover, this attack is using predominantly Ukrainian-born soldiers, who are openly operating vehicles and fitted with gear supplied by Nato countries.
Russia has not yet been able to get an adequate handle on the breakthrough, as, almost a week into the fighting, the Ukrainians have advanced with hundreds or perhaps thousands of soldiers approximately 30 kilometres into Kursk. Ukraine has also increased its use of electronic warfare and anti-aircraft systems to enable and support the breach. The intended duration of the operation is unclear and Ukraine is working without prepared and fortified defensive positions, meaning that it will be susceptible to the inevitable Russian counterattack. Yet, the shape of the push indicates Kyiv launched it with a planned withdrawal in mind.
Though unprecedented in scale and providing an array of operational and public relations benefits to Ukraine, the incursion is unlikely to shift the overall trajectory of the conflict in any significant way. Given the bleak state of the frontline — particularly in the Avdiivka area — the calculation and benefits may prove worth it if executed efficiently. For instance, there are signs it has boosted the morale of certain segments of Ukraine’s military and could force Russia to draw personnel from the frontline while producing casualties and POWs.
This marks a notable escalation by the Ukrainian leadership. The fundamentals, though, have not changed. Ukraine might see its best chance of keeping the pressure on by launching this surprise attack, but it likely will not be enough to shift the war in its favour. Russia maintains the military advantage and, despite considerable losses, it is incrementally gaining ground and seizing settlements in the Pokrovsk direction. Kyev’s Kursk raid may boost morale, but its impact will be largely symbolic.
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Subscribe“Though unprecedented in scale and providing an array of operational and public relations benefits to Ukraine, the incursion is unlikely to shift the overall trajectory of the conflict in any significant way.”
I wonder how many died in an effort to change nothing.
Try asking Putin (who caused all these deaths). But you’ll only get lies.
Why would he have Ukrainian dead numbers?
I’m sure the Russians have got some numbers for all these things. I’ve seen some of their claims in the past include such things. All part of their propaganda output.
So I’m baffled – why would you assume they don’t ?
But as I said, they’ll be lies.
In any case, my point was clearly that it is Putin and Putin alone who’s responsible for this war and these deaths. In case that wasn’t clear.
I don’t think you’re baffled at all.
Only that you never answer questions and always deflect … . I answered your question.
I never answer?
Your question seemed to me to “try asking Putin”, Not really a question, but still, something I cannot do.
Deflecting; do you mean me thinking you’re not really baffled? Well you’re not, are you? I don’t think Putin would have those numbers. He might have some, but not a real total. So that’s my assumption, That seems pretty straight forward to me. Nothing baffling about that.
So let’s stop pretending. You’ve assumed something about my comment,but you don’t come out and say it. What you’ve assumed is that I support Putin. Am I right?
I’ve made no assumptions about your beliefs. Not everyone who appears to oppose Ukraine’s struggle for independence and freedom (and this is certainly the impression you give) is necessarily pro-Russian. Though they are almost all misguided (just my opinion).
If some of us have formed the wrong impression of your views, you can always clear up any misunderstandings. You have some responsibility for the impression your remarks create.
Since Russia started the war, you imagine they’d be keeping score on this sort of thing, wouldn’t you ?
Why didn’t Putin launch this war for the first 20 odd years he was in power ? What happened around 2020-22?
You do realise it was men like Putin who agreed to peacefully withdraw from East Europe? Give Ukraine independence?
Only to see “peaceful” NATO roll across those East European countries all the way to its borders.
Putin *did not* agree to peacefully withraw from Eastern Europe ! That was already a fact on the ground when he came to power. All these ex-Soviet states were already independent countries. Ukraine became independent in 1991.
The ex-Soviet states *freely chose* to join NATO. Given that the Baltic States and Poland had been invaded/dominated by the Soviet Union in 1939 it’s surely not a surprise to you that they would make such a decision ? Add Finland – also invaded in 1939 – to the list of countries that chose to join NATO. Common factor: recently invaded by Russia.
At least get the history correct.
And so Putin invaded Ukraine — and Finland and Sweden rushed to join NATO. Was that all part of the plan?
Ask the survivors of Bucha if the rest of Ukraine should have just folded. Change nothing? – twaddle.
I’m not really sure what your point is.
I’m surprised you aren’t, but just in case you really are struggling – the reason the Ukrainians fight and continue to sacrifice is they full know what would happen if the Russians had won or taken more towns and cities. They stopped that happening. That’s not ‘nothing’, unless you are sat thousands of miles away on a keyboard.
Your as bad as Peter B. My comments are in relation to the story above. It’s my quote from the story you disagree with. The action changed nothing. You might know different. It’s entirely possible they’ve stopped Russia advancing. But they can’t keep this up. There are only so many men they can keep throwing at the Russians.
How can you possibly know that if you claim not to know what the casualty figures are ?
You also appear to be predicting the future here (“the action changed nothing”). Surely a little premature to be pasing judgement so early and on so little information. It may turn out to have made things worse for Ukraine. Or better. Or little different. I’m sure I don’t know yet.
How can you feel so certain ?
I think you’re getting a bit confused. I don’t recall claiming to not know what the casualty figures are. But if you’re referring to my comment about them being unable to keep this up, well I think that’s pretty obvious, whether you support the war or not. But as Watson said, you’re a thousand miles away from the action, you’ll be alright.
Oh, I see. Are you referring to this?:
”I wonder how many died in an effort to change nothing.”
The war in Ukraine has been going on for 10 years now, with no end in sight. It seems past time for the United States to step up with a solution. Or do we not purport to lead the world anymore?
You lead the world in the same sense the kid at school who had money had friends that didn’t like him.
Both the United States and Europe have poured a lot of money and arms into Ukraine, but with nothing to show for it. The Minsk accords were a feeble attempt to broker peace, but the US wasn’t even involved in them. Other attempts have been even feebler.
Now Ukraine for the first time in this war sends its troops 20 miles into Russian territory and holds that territory. Did the US support that move and use it to advantage in negotiating with Russia? No, the US didn’t even know that the move would take place, and has had no negotiations with Russia since the invasion began.
The US purports to be the leader of the free world, but this is not leadership. Donald Trump didn’t do much when he was in office to help Ukraine, but at least he tried, holding a summit with Vladimir Putin and providing arms to Volodymyr Zelensky. And at least Donald Trump has a process in mind to find a solution, a process that he would start the day he got into office.
Of course bringing the war in Ukraine to an end will not be easy. But the only way to do that is by talking with Russia and exploring possibilities. Someone needs to do that. Someone needs to talk to Volodymyr Zelensky. Talk to Vladimir Putin. Try to work out some sort of deal. End the killing and set the stage for the two countries to live together, as neighbors, in peace.
Finding a solution will not be easy. At this point it’s impossible to say what solution can be found. But that’s usually the way it is in negotiation. You find solutions by talking.
To quote the fictional ambassador Hal Wyler in the fine Netflix show The Diplomat, “one of the boneheaded truisms of foreign policy is that talking to your enemies legitimizes them. Talk to everyone! Talk to the dictator and the war criminal. Talk to terrorists. Talk to everyone!” Or Moshe Dayan: “If you want peace you don’t talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.”
War is not a good way to settle disputes. Talking is. Yet the United States has a senile president babbling his way to the end of his term still more than 6 months away, and a vice president with zero experience in and zero talent for foreign affairs who wants to take his place. So Ukraine does things like this incursion on its own, and the United States is just a spectator.
Some leadership.
Very well put.
I think it’s clear the US is not a spectator, and that its continued, very active, course of involvement would be even more disastrous for Ukraine. Put plainly, the U.S. has to stop thinking of Ukraine as a proxy to fight Russia, and to quit the idea of expanding NATO to Ukraine.
The United States, in 1989/90, promised Gorbachev that NATO would not move — quote — “one inch” eastward if the USSR dissolved the Warsaw Pact.
By ’92, Ukraine was included in plans to expand NATO, and that plan was articulated and given a timetable authored by Zbigniew Bresinski, published in Foreign Affairs. (The same Bresinski responsible for the creation of the mujahadeen, which morphed into al Queda, completely out of U.S. control, as was predicted. You see how this gamesmanship turns out, over and over.)
Russia warned the U.S. to not move NATO to its Ukraine border; the U.S. then expanded NATO ten more times (seven times under George W. Bush). In 2008, the U.S. insisted that Ukraine and Georgia be included in NATO, which would complete the plan to surround Russia in the Black Sea region. Putin told the U.S. to stop expanding NATO to their planned total expansion of 14 countries.
In the Ukraine, a large majority of citizens did not want NATO expanding to their country, and they elected President Yanukovych, who supported neutrality. He was opposed by far-right nationalists and oligarchs — the Maidan opposition, partly funded by the U.S. — who plotted a false-flag massacre of Maidan protesters, which led to their overthrowing the government and seizing power. Russia retaliated by illegally taking over Crimea, which is predominantly ethnic-Russian, a population that supported separating to join Russia. Then civil war broke out in Donbas, another sector with heavy ethnic-Russian, pro-separatist population, and Russia illegally annexed it.
Intercepted recordings of Undersecretary Of State Victoria Newland (formerly Cheney’s top advisor on the Iraq invasion; a ghoul who floated for decades between administrations) speaking two weeks before the coup, reveal her discussing who the next Ukrainian President and top officials would be afterward. She refers to her team: V.P. Joe Biden, and Sec. of State Jake Sullivan.
The coup was followed by Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea, then civil war in Ukraine, then Russia’s illegal intervention in the Donbas, escalating conflicts between Ukraine/Russia, & Russia/Western countries, then Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine.
When civil war broke out, NATO flooded Ukraine with billions worth of weapons. Putin proposed a draft security agreement Dec. ’21, which hinged on ending NATO enlargement. The U.S. turned it down, and in Jan. ’22 formally rejected any negotiation that involved NATO enlargement. Ukraine began negotiating peace terms with Russia at Ankara, Turkey, which the U.S. blocked, according to a variety of sources directly involved, including former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, and members of the Turkish government.
How about a Reagan Solution? When asked how the Cold War would end, he said “We win, they lose”.
Both as a lawyer and otherwise, I’ve never been fond of zero-sum solutions. They never add to what’s in the world, to global growth and well-being. Win-win solutions are better, even if they are lopsided.
You are a lawyer too, I know. Maybe you have done litigation or business law. I’ve done a lot of both. Years ago when I was at a big law firm I was in corporate finance but did a lot of litigation too.
In both I tried to look for deals that let both sides win something. Positive-sum outcomes, not zero-sum. Society benefits from positive-sum outcomes, but zero-sum outcomes turn out to be net losses to society after the lawyers take their cut.
Luckily I largely left the legal profession a long time ago so I could do something productive with my life. I had tired of the petty and pointless posturing of litigators arguing the arcane and abstract and ignoring the effect of all that in the real world. Still am tired of that, in law, in business, in politics, and in foreign affairs.
So no, I’m not much for the Reagan Solution.
Clever isn’t it. Russians move to counter and they become more easy to hit, esp with some of the ordnance the Ukrainians now got. Mobile warfare not been their strongest suit either. Classic tactic.
Strategically may not make the biggest difference on the ground but psychologically it’s v powerful. ‘In warfare morale power is to physical as three parts out of four’ said a Corsican general.
Still a 38th parallel settlement likely. It’s just about where. Next summer after Putin grasps the US election and subsequent strife not riding to his rescue.
Good plan. I am happy with the Russians occupying those portions of Ukraine below the 38th parallel.
Here comes the Putin fanboys!
I don’t see anyone here who supports Putin. Care to point them out.
They have decreased in number a bit now that we have to do that reCAPTCHA thing to post.
Having been bogged down and pummeled to destruction, you can appreciate the desire of UA commanders for more open engagement, even the legendary ‘war of movement.’ And with the Russians having declined the border near Sumy for a possible advance of their own, opportune time and place presented themselves. And were seized a bit too hastily perhaps, given the now apparent lack of strategic choice between raid and land grab, with the very different commitments each implies. As ever, there’s a price to be paid for over estimating your ability to improvise.. But they had reason to believe the RA would have to improvise too, which led back to the core UA belief that they could do better in more open war scenarios.
And the mood among political leaders certainly favours opportunism, to the extent of mistaking disaster for opportunity. And, if we’re to believe that the Russian nuclear power station near Kursk was an actual target, a desperate desire to pull the carpet out from under everyone everywhere. Perhaps an inevitable consequence of ‘fighting to the last Ukrainian ‘
.
Does anyone else find it a bit unsettling that the battle is in Kursk. It has a world war feel to it.
Not me. The Battle of Kursk had 6,000 tanks. This incursion has a handful.
“but it likely will not be enough to shift the war in its favour” <– The war is already in Ukraine’s favor, simply because Russia failed in it’s attempted coup de main. At the relative rates of expenditure from the cessation of Ukraine’s attempt to advance towards Melitopol to the last day before the Kursk offensive, Russia will run out of men and material in 2026 at a rate far faster than Ukraine runs out of men and at the expense of about 25% of Ukraine’s territory — and Russia will then be unable to hold it’s lines.
I believe the intent of the Kursk and related offensives, is to instead bring the conflict to a close prior to January 20th, 2025, in the sense that Kyiv is in a quite dominant negotiating position.
It Is hard to know, literally and metaphorically, where the incursion is going.
Maybe America demanded some action before the next cheque arrived.