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Flash in the pan or preparation for a counterattack: The Russian army has been trying to repel the Ukrainian attack in the Kursk region for almost two weeks. Now another bridge has been lost and Russia is having difficulties with supplies. © -/Russian Defense Ministry Press Service /dpa
Analysts miss the military purpose of the Kursk offensive. Russia is still ignoring the region and is fighting its way forward in eastern Ukraine.
Karyzh – “The war in the Kursk region arouses mixed feelings among men of fighting age,” writes Benjamin Quénelle – the bounties offered reached record amounts, as the Moscow correspondent of the French newspaper The World writes. Ukraine is building up pressure on Vladimir Putin; the defenders of the Ukraine war have now destroyed a third bridge in the Kursk region in quick succession. Russia must therefore reinforce its troops there – which will probably not happen for the time being. While Ukraine is holding on there, the Russian invasion army is rolling forward in Donetsk.
“We are achieving our goals,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Selenskyj wrote on Monday in the messenger service Telegram about the invasion of Kursk, which has been going on for two weeks, and added that more Russian soldiers had been captured – this is currently reported by the news agency Reuters“Our goals” also concerns a third bridge over which Russia’s supplies to the region run. The magazine Newsweek sees the current neutralization of the bridge near the village of Karyzh, west of Glushkovo and Zvannoye, as the last access to the region and expects the imminent extinction of the Russian troops on the ground.
Russia would have to deploy up to 20,000 men for the Ukraine war in Kursk
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) makes a devastating calculation and draws estimates of the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) If Vladimir Putin wanted to push the Ukrainians back, he would have to launch a massive counter-offensive. An anonymous Ukrainian source told the WSJ stated that 6,000 Ukrainian soldiers are now stationed in the Kursk region – up to 4,000 are providing support and relief from the Sumy region. For Russia, a counter-offensive would be a herculean task, as the source of the WSJ suspected.
“And Russia basically knocked on the door and asked for a prisoner exchange, because the fact that conscripts were being captured there brought to light that they were deployed there, and that is very, very controversial in Russia.”
According to the Austrian magazine Troop service An attack is carried out in several stages: from the approach to the line of fire, crossing the line of fire in combat formation, approaching the target of the attack, breaking into the target of the attack, fighting in the target of the attack and securing the target of the attack. “The attacker will try to ‘hit’ the defender’s weak point with his main force in order to storm over the enemy. The expected superiority of the attacking combat troops amounts to a ratio of 3:1 to 10:1,” writes Major Markus Ziegler in Troop service.
According to the report, the Russian counter-offensive must include, in addition to the appropriate vehicles and artillery preparation, a strength of up to 20,000 troops – well-trained forces, says the Ukrainian source of the WSJThe Kremlin is apparently trying to mobilize them, as The World writes: “Together, the Moscow City Hall and the Ministry of Defense are now offering 5.2 million rubles (more than 50,000 euros) annually to each volunteer who goes to the front.”
Losses of the bridges in Kurs make a quick counter-offensive utopian for Russia
As the ISW analyzes, the delay in the rapid Ukrainian advances on Kursk is primarily due to the regrouping of its own forces. However, this containment is only the first and probably least resource-intensive phase of the Russian response in the Kursk region, the ISW speculates. Without additional troops, equipment and material, a counteroffensive is utopian, the analysts suggest. Depending on how Ukraine strengthens itself in the Kursk region, Russia will have to multiply its efforts.
Russian propaganda is still trivializing the reality in the Kursk region, reports The World: “The operation to destroy Ukrainian forces continues,” RVvoenkorone of the leading pro-war Telegram channels. Every day, the channel quantifies the enemy’s losses and uses videos to prove how Russian fighter jets successfully hit their targets. However, official information implicitly confirms Ukrainian advances, says Benjamin Quénelle.
Die New York Times on the other hand, fuels the suspicion that the Russian military leadership could possibly ignore Kursk. According to Constant Méheut, battlefield maps show that Russian troops are continuing to march towards the city of Pokrovsk. This would shatter Ukraine’s hope that its offensive and the associated loss of reputation and territory could force Moscow to give in and retreat on its fronts in eastern Ukraine. The destruction of one or now three bridges would be tactically and strategically worthless for Ukraine – the ISW judges that Putin would maintain his priorities.
Selenskyj is making a big move – otherwise his attacks on Kursk make little sense
The magazine Foreign Policy in turn, prophesies the first sign of a major coup by the Ukrainian military leadership – John Deni wants to be able to glean “important insights into the long-term course of the war” from the offensive. It is possible that behind it is part of a more comprehensive military campaign that could last well into 2025 and is deliberately setting the stage for operations elsewhere, as the research professor at the Strategic Studies Institute of the US Army War College interprets.
“If these preliminary conclusions are confirmed, the Kursk offensive could prove to be an important turning point,” writes Deni – then the blowing up of the bridges would make sense again. Wall Street Journal However, it also reports the exact opposite: namely, statements by Ukrainian occupation soldiers that food, water and cigarettes had become scarce; which makes it clear that Ukraine has also advanced further than its logistics on enemy territory could adequately keep up. “In the supermarkets, fresh produce had spoiled because there was no electricity, and the occupation troops were hesitant to shoot livestock,” writes the WSJ.
Indications that John Deni’s thesis is reliable are actually provided by The World Russia’s offensive recruitment efforts. An indication that Russia apparently really wants to confront the invading troops. An indication that Russia can only muster serious massed troops at certain points. According to Newsweek Russia has lost two-thirds of the troops it had before the Ukraine war, sources from Kiev claim. The Kursk disaster has exposed Russia’s weaknesses, the magazine concludes.
Russia has now woken up – and is arguing about the front-line deployment of conscripts
What Putin presents quite differently, as the Russian news agency Tass “I can tell you that our losses, especially the irrecoverable losses, are certainly significantly less than those of the counterparty,” Vladimir Putin said during a press conference in St. Petersburg. “As for the irrecoverable losses, the ratio is one to five,” Putin specified, according to the Tass.
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Losses are also a territorial issue – but the gain in Kursk is negligible: 0.006 percent of the vast Russian empire is now in the hands of Ukraine, said Daily Mirror-Journalist Christian Tretbar in the press round on Phönix; that would be no reason for Putin to worry. Freelance journalist Gesine Dornblüth also does not fear any major military maneuvers by Russia in light of the Ukrainian invasion.
According to her, the number of prisoners counted to the world is in the hundreds – “some sources even say 2,000,” she says. That is the point at which Russia is actually moving, at which Ukraine can force Russia to react. “And Russia has basically knocked on the door and asked for a prisoner exchange, because the fact that conscripts were captured there brought to light that they are deployed there and that is very, very controversial in Russia.”
