Ukraine Update…900 Days of the Russian Conflict…Ukraine found a soft spot to invade….

The Ukraine forces found a weak point to invade Russia and heeding a suggestion the American military, had pushed for the last year for the Donetsk?

They mounted a blitz offence action INTO Russia….

Anyone who thinks the US was surprised by this needs to have their head examined….

The border between the two countries HAVE to be watchful eyes of US Intel satellites, drones and manned intel aircraft….

The push seems to have caught the Russian military completely by surprise….

The Russian forces where overwhelmed …..

Ukraine official’s say they will keep POW’s for swap bait….

Other official’s say the Ukraine may not look to keep the territory they have control over, but use the gains in a possible ‘deal’ for a cease fire….

Reports ARE that the Russians ARE pulling forces from Donetsk to be sent to Kursk , which would take preset off Ukraine force’s in Donetsk ….

The bottom line IS that Ukraine, with Western weapons HAVE a Offensive effort that HAS made sgnificant gains, helping their feels nad hurting Puitin’s….

 

NY Times on the Ukraine Summer offensive at Kursk….

On Aug. 6, Ukraine launched an audacious military offensive, planned and executed in secrecy, with the aim of upending the dynamics of a war it has appeared to be losing, town by town, as Russian troops have ground forward in the east. The operation surprised even Kyiv’s closest allies, including the United States, and has pushed the limits of how Western military equipment would be permitted to be used inside Russian territory.

For Russia, it was a moment nearly as shocking as the mercenary Yevgeny V. Prigozhin’s march on Moscow in June 2023: the vaunted security state that President Vladimir V. Putin had built crumbled in the face of the surprise attack, failing in its basic task of protecting its citizens. And the unwritten social contract that has largely accompanied Mr. Putin’s 30-month campaign — that most Russians could get on with their normal lives even as he waged war — was cast into question anew.

Mostly on the defensive since a failed counteroffensive last year, Ukraine has pushed seven miles into Russia along a 25-mile front and taken dozens of Russian soldiers as prisoners, analysts and Russian officials say. The governor of Russia’s Kursk region said on Monday that Ukraine controls 28 towns and villages there. More than 132,000 people have been evacuated from nearby areas, Russian officials said….

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• Ukraine’s invasion of Russia’s Kursk region has left Vladimir Putin with a dilemma, the US president, Joe Biden, said on Tuesday. “It’s creating a real dilemma for Putin, and we’ve been in direct contact, constant contact, with the Ukrainians. That’s all I’m going to say about it while it’s active.” Answering questions from reporters in New Orleans, Biden said he had been briefed every four to five hours for the last six to eight days on Ukraine’s action.

• The goal of Ukraine’s Kursk incursion appears to be to force Russia to pull troops out of Ukraine to defend Russian territory against the Ukrainian cross-border assault, a US official said on Tuesday, quoted by the Reuters news agency. A week after Ukrainian forces launched their surprise attack, Russian authorities are scrambling to bring the situation in Kursk under control, Shaun Walker writes. The Biden administration has insisted it had no advance knowledge and no involvement in the operation.

• In an explainer using maps, footage and photos, Peter Beaumont writesthat Ukraine’s top military commander, Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, claimed on Monday that Ukraine controlled about 1,000 sq km (386 sq miles) of the Kursk region. The claim was largely confirmed on the Russian side. Alexei Smirnov, acting governor of the Kursk region, told the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, via a videoconference on Monday that Ukrainian forces controlled 28 Russian settlements including towns and villages up to 18 miles (30km) inside Russia.

• Dan Sabbagh writes from the border of Ukraine’s Sumy and Russia’s Kursk regions: “The Sudzha crossing is now 5 miles or so from the current frontline inside Russia’s Kursk oblast. For now at least, it remains very much in Ukrainian hands a full week into the border incursion.”

• Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said Kyiv’s forces had rounded up Russian prisoners of war to be used as an “exchange fund” for captured Ukrainian fighters. “Despite difficult and intense battles, our forces continue to advance in the Kursk region, and our state’s ‘exchange fund’ is growing. Seventy-four settlements are under Ukrainian control,” Zelenskiy said.
  Shown speaking by video link, Zelenskiy asked his top commander, Oleksandr Syrskyi, to develop the next “key steps” in the operation. “Everything is being executed according to the plan,” Syrskyi replied, without elaborating.

• Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said on Tuesday that Russia needs to be forced to participate in a summit on peace as it would not do so willingly. “Simple calls to Russia do not work, only a set of coercive tools works,” he said, meaning economic and diplomatic pressure as well as the invasion of Kursk. By actions inside Russia, Ukraine was resolving the key issue of its own security. “This is destruction of war infrastructure and formation of so-called sanitary zones so that Russia cannot use there … equipment that strikes deep into the territory of Ukraine.”

• Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesman Georgiy Tykhy on Tuesday said Kyiv was not interested in “taking over” Russian territory and defended Ukraine’s actions as “absolutely legitimate”. “The sooner Russia agrees to restore a just peace … the sooner the raids by the Ukrainian defence forces into Russia will stop.”

• “They didn’t protect the border,” a Ukrainian serviceman who took part in the offensive and identified himself as Ruzhyk told Agence France-Presse in the Sumy region. “They only had anti-personnel mines scattered around trees at the side of the road and a few mines that they managed to quickly throw along the highways.” A 27-year-old squad leader, who identified himself as Faraon, said: “I saw a lot of death in the first few days. It was terrifying at first but then we got used to it. There have been many deaths,” he repeated, without elaborating. Ukrainian military analyst Mykola Bielieskov told AFP: “Russian complacency prevailed.Russia assumed that since it had initiative elsewhere, Ukraine wouldn’t dare to do things we’ve seen.”

• At the UN security council, Russia attempted to attack Ukraine’s allies over the Kursk invasion but was met with retorts about its own war of aggression against its neighbour. “We will not recognise the aggressor as the victim,” said senior Slovenian diplomat Klemen Ponikvar. “There is no question as to which country has committed numerous well-documented atrocities, including war crimes and crimes against humanity, on Ukraine’s sovereign territory,” said US diplomat Caleb Pine. “That country is Russia.” British diplomat Kate Jones said allies would “never falter in our support for Ukraine” to secure “just and sustainable peace based on the principles of the UN charter and international law”. Diplomats from Syria, Belarus and North Korea spoke in support of Russia.

• Russian shelling killed at least one civilian and injured two more in Ukraine’s Sumy region, said the local administration across the border from Kursk.
  It said 45 Russian attacks on the region had been recorded on Tuesday, including guided bomb strikes, explosions from drones, and shelling. Ukraine’s military on Tuesday restricted the movement of civilians within a 20km (12 mile) zone of the north-eastern border area…..

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Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, August 13, 2024

Aug 13, 2024 – ISW Press