- Ukrainian forces launched a surprise offensive into Russia’s Kursk region last Tuesday.
- They have captured around 1,000 square kilometers of Russian land so far, Kyiv’s top general said.
- That figure is almost as much territory as Russia has seized in Ukraine this year.
I’ve been looking for some sort of analysis of this Kursk incursion but have come up empty handed. I’m looking for something along the lines of Markus Reisner’s analyses.
In particular, I’m wondering what the likely paths are to altering the course of the war.
How likely is it that Ukraine will be able to hold this territory? Will they be able to use it as a staging area to launch additional attacks?
Is it likely to alter the artillery equation? Russia currently fires 3-5 times as many artillery shells as Ukraine does. Does this do something like limiting their production rates or their ability to deliver ordinance to the front lines?
Is it likely that Ukraine killed or captured enough Russian troops to impact the broader war?
A phrase like, “That figure is almost as much territory as Russia has seized in Ukraine this year.” kind of implies that there has been a shift in the momentum of the war and that we can expect such announcements more regularly going forward. Is that actually likely?
My pessimistic guess is that this was a brilliant tactical move that will ultimately get steamrolled by Russia’s sheer mass, but I’d love to read an analysis from someone with more expertise.
this has to be something designed to pull forces away from other places. I don’t think Ukraine is planning on holding it for any length of time.
we saw video come out about 200 miles from the front in Kursk showing military transport trucks that had been struck by Ukraine as they were going to reinforce the region, which means Ukraine has dedicated deep strike capabilities to this part of the battlefield.
I think the intention is to kill and destroy as much Russian personnel and materiel as they can while it’s being transported. like they’ve mapped out all of the travel lines in to and out of Kursk, and they have dedicated weapons platforms prepared to destroy anything that comes up those roads. they’ll be able to blitz a whole bunch of Russian equipment without even having to engage them on the ground, if those trucks were full (there were stacked bodies in the video), that’s 300 casualties without having to put any of your infantry in danger.
If that’s the case then Ukraine would need to repeat the Kursk invasion a lot before it made a difference.
Trying to out attrit an opponent with many times the population and GDP is a pretty tall order.
I’m trying to differentiate between things we might like and things that are actually likely.
it’s not just the attrition aspect, it’s the fact that those resources are being pulled away from the other fronts. this would succeed even if all the stuff that Russia sent to Kursk came back intact
I think that still boils down to attrition and relative size.
From what I’ve seen. Russia has only pulled small numbers of troops out of other theaters to reinforce Kursk. They’ve had an ongoing assault on Avdiivka and they don’t seem to have pulled enough troops out of there to slow down the assault.
The impact, both the severity of the impact and the duration of the impact is likely to hinge on how deep Russias reserves are and their overall production capacity. As near as I can tell, they have both in spades.
From what I’ve seen on Russian industrial production they don’t really care too much if all of Kursk were destroyed. It’s not a strategic location (I think) and all the human and material resources can be easily and quickly replaced.
That obviously involves a lot of guesswork on my part. That’s why I’m wondering if someone with expertise just knows the answers to these kinds of questions (and would hopefully also provide sources).
