Russia has been massing large forces on its territory to check and reverse Ukrainian forces in the Russian-held town of Kursk, a counterattack to the ongoing alleged counterattack.
Ukraine took a surprise turn for Russia earlier this year, as Russia pivoted from occasional, score-winning incursions into Russian territory to a full-blown attempt to seize and occupy Russian territory. This is in retaliation for Ukrainian territory taken by Moscow, and will likely become a bargaining chip if peace talks come to fruition. As the fighting continues, Russia now appears serious about retaking the UN-recognized border at Kursk. This could be seen as a counter-attack of a counter-attack.
Analysis of battlefield footage by Russian and Ukrainian sources, as well as groups such as the Institute for War Studies (ISW) suggest that Russia is retaking parts of its territory. While the Ukrainian government has so far remained silent about these developments, several senior Russian government officials have made bold claims about the speed with which Russia is dealing damage to Ukrainian forces inside the country.
“We are confidently driving Ukrainian forces out of Kursk,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said this morning, while Moscow's state news agency TASS quoted special forces commander Maj. Gen. Apti Alaudinov as claiming that Russian forces have recaptured 10 villages. “The situation is good. Our troops have launched an offensive on the right flank in the Kursk direction. As of yesterday and today, about 10 settlements in the Kursk region have been liberated in this direction,” he said.
General Alauddinov made a big claim about the Ukrainian military itself, alleging that Kiev was executing its own soldiers en masse. While such claims in wartime should always be viewed with suspicion, the officer nevertheless argued: “The number of prisoners killed by their own comrades to prevent them from being brought here must number in the hundreds…It even seems to me that the Ukrainian military is more concerned with killing its own soldiers who have decided to surrender than with killing the enemy, i.e. us.”
Official Russian casualty figures during the fighting to drive Ukrainian forces out of Kursk are equally horrific and impossible to prove, with Moscow claiming that Ukrainian troops suffered casualties in counterattacks.
…more than 12,200 personnel, 96 tanks, 42 infantry fighting vehicles, 77 armored personnel carriers, 656 armored fighting vehicles, 401 automobiles, 90 artillery pieces, 26 multiple rocket launcher systems (including 7 HIMARS rocket launchers and 5 M270 MLRS), 8 surface-to-air missile systems, 2 transport carriers, 22 electronic warfare stations, 7 anti-battery radar stations, 2 air defense radar systems, 8 engineer vehicles (including 2 obstacle clearance vehicles and 1 UR-77 mine-clearance vehicle).
The Ukrainian government has not officially responded, but Oleksandr Musienko, a Ukrainian analyst and director of the Center for Military Legal Studies who has been quoted by both sides on the conflict, said that while a Russian counterattack is occurring, it's all part of a grand plan. The fact that Russia has massed 35,000 troops in Kursk means that the attack is a strategic success for Kiev, because these are soldiers who are no longer fighting on the front lines inside Ukraine.
He said a Russian counterattack was expected and that Ukrainian forces were now “ready to repel the enemy's attack, inflicting damage and exhausting the Russian forces. This will affect not only the Kursk region, but the entire east, because the aim is in any case to weaken the Russian forces,” he said, claiming that “tactical withdrawals from certain fronts are acceptable” and part of the plan.
To prevent encirclement of their new position in Russia's Kyirsk Oblast, Ukraine tried to blow up bridges over surrounding rivers, but the Russians managed to get tanks over the bridges. Russian military engineers have long been skilled at bridge building, a legacy of anticipated but never-successful Cold War battles.
Russia's response to the Ukrainian counterattack. A debate is raging in Western capitals over whether to allow Ukraine to strike deeper into Russia's interior. In recent months, Russia has been making effective use of very large air-launched glide bombs, fired into the air from remote airfields far from the front lines and well beyond Ukraine's ability to strike back.
Kiev says the ability to use the West's most advanced cruise missiles to destroy military bases inside Russia gives it a better chance of surviving this effective and relatively low-cost onslaught. Glide bombs are nothing more than old-fashioned, low-yield Cold War-era bombs fitted with satellite-guided wings and folding wings, making them extremely cost-effective. President Zelenskiy has been meeting with US and British envoys this week and a decision on whether to authorise such an attack is expected soon.
