Don's Weekly, 12 August 2024: Part 1
by Donald Hill
Hello everybody!
The Ukrainian operation into the Kursk Oblast is holding all of us on our toes, this week - and that’s likely to remain that way for a while longer. Between others, because this also means that manoeuvre warfare is back to the battlefield, at least for a while longer. And, manoeuvre warfare is always ‘more exciting’ than ‘endless grinding’ of positional warfare (or ‘trench warfare’).
Obviously, we do not intend to entirely focus on Kursk and ignore ‘everything else’. However, alone trying to disentangle all the news about who is moving what to where and has reached this or that position is taking few hours a day. Indeed, even this review is going to start with a summary of what was going on in the south-west of the Kursk Oblast.
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Kursk Oblast
Back in May, even as the Russians crossed the border into Vovchansk and Hlyboke to launch their attack into northern Kharkiv Oblast in Ukraine, official Kyiv was warning of a buildup of Russian opposite to its Sumy Oblat.
"As for the Sumy region, the Russians actually planned an operation in the Sumy region from the very beginning... but the situation did not allow them to take active actions and start the operation," Budanov said.
Ukrainian units were rushed to the Kharkiv region to stop the advances there and ever more units were moved to the Sumy region, ready to react to a Russian advance across that border.
There were no Russian forces ready to cross, of course, but saying there was a threat provided cover for moving Ukrainian units into the area. That was necessary because it is impossible to hide large movements from drones and other assets. Ukraine also relied on past behaviors to influence Russian interpretations of the movement. From May 2023 to March 2024, Russian and other forces allied with Ukraine conducted several raids into Belgorod and Kursk, pulling back each time. Ukrainian troops never crossed the border and the raiding forces were never strong enough to hold the territory on their own. With the US restrictions on using their weapons inside Russia, there might be even more reason to believe that Ukraine would not cross the border in force. Besides, Ukraine is strategically on the defensive and losing a kilometer a week at Pokrovsk.
There are some similarities between the Kursk offensive and the Kharkiv offensive of September 2022. In 2022, Ukraine was also on the defensive and the only offensive actions they conducted up to that point were local counter attacks. Like Kursk, the sector chosen in Kharkiv was manned by low quality Russian troops with few reserves to back them up. Like Kursk, the build up of Ukrainian troops was observed and not recognized for what it was. And, in both cases, once the weak initial defenses were breached, Ukraine was able to move rapidly to exploit the breach and Russia had to send reinforcements over long distances to contain the breach.
There has been lots of speculation as to the objectives of the Kursk offensive, mostly focusing on the oil pipeline (which also runs through Ukraine), a rail line that supplies Vovchansk (one of many), and the Kursk nuclear power plant. Kursk and the nuclear power plant (NPP) are too far away to hold with the troops Ukraine committed. In front of Pokrovsk, Ukraine has six brigades across a 20 kilometer front. By comparison, the perimeter Ukraine currently has in Kursk is roughly 100 km long. The Kursk NPP is 60 kilometers from Ukraine and Kursk itself is 80 kilometers away. If Ukraine extended its perimeter on a narrow front just to the NPP it would have a length of about 180 km. And then there is the suggestion that any territory gained would be a bargaining chip for negotiations.
We don’t know what the Ukrainian leadership knows but it is possible that this is just a continuation of the attrition of the Russian army under more favorable circumstances. Inside Ukraine the strategy was to hold terrain that was favorable for defense and to fall back when that was no longer the case. There were times when that tactic was executed very well, such as at Novomykhailivka and Marinka, and times when it was not, such as at Toretsk and Avdiivka-Pokrovsk sectors.
But Ukraine identified a sector that was weakly defended by conscripts with little to no reserves in the region. By breaking through and securing Russian land, it compels Russia to attack on a wider front on the ground of Ukraine’s choosing. The added bonus is that this is Russian ground, so the fighting will not destroy Ukrainian lands.
Because it is Russian ground, Russia will feel compelled to attack and regain it. The more Russia attacks, the faster it uses up its reserves. And becasue it meanwhile lacks sophistication, Russia needs a lot of reserves to keep throwing troops at Ukrainian defenses to eventually push them back. One or two Russian attacks will generally not break a Ukrainian defensive position. They need to conduct multiple attacks to physically degrade the trenches and cause Ukrainian casualties until there are no positions intact to defend or Ukrainian reinforcements did not arrive in time and the survivors have to pull back. That only happens when Russia has enough reserves to send multiple waves.
So Russia has a choice: It can attack in the same locations with fewer reserves and diminishing chances of success, or it can, gradually, reduce the locations where it’s attacking. They’ve already made a choice for the moment. They’re pulling some units from a lot of sectors on the battlefield, anywhere from a couple of battalions to a couple of brigades, and sending them to the Kursk Region. They only pulled one unit from the Donetsk region and it had just arrived from Kherson. So it appears that Russia’s priorities are Donetsk, as it has been, and Kursk. The other sectors may continue attacking but with fewer reserves they won’t have as many human meat waves to send against Ukrainian positions.
Russia is sending a few large units, such as brigades and regiments, but foremost battalions, companies and 2-4 vehicles from diverse units. To a certain degree, that doesn’t matter because ‘meat is meat’, but the multiple fragments of units does make it more difficult to coordinate efforts of turning these fragments into a coherent wave. And there is some evidence of these fragments being committed piecemeal. Every encounter, no matter how small, slows Ukraine down, and Russia needs to slow Ukraine down so they send the reinforcements down the four main roads leading to Sudzha, the center of the operation.
For its part, Ukraine wants to continue to disrupt the formation of Russia’s defenses, so it also moves ‘up’ the four main roads out of Sudzha to meet the Russian reinforcements and push them further down the road if they can. This buys time for Ukrainian units to secure the villages and treelines up to 10 km away from the main roads, and it also provides time for Ukrainian units in the rear to set up defensive positions and dig in. Ukraine has also been conducting raids up to 15-20km ahead the established Ukrainian lines, into areas where they could not be supported logistically, and then withdrawing. These actions put Russia on the defensive, disrupts their movement and slows them down. One such raid reported by the Russians was at Rylsk, which threatened the supply line of the Russians in Korenevo.
Ukrainian advances don’t mean they intend to fight hard for all the territories they gain, but it will delay Russian attacks on the territory it does want to hold. Militarily, it is not important if Ukraine holds a particular treeline, village or even Sudzha. What is important is that the units hold the line have access to supplies and reinforcements. Roads are the best way to support logistics and the best roads are the four leading into Sudzha, and from there to Ukraine. For that reason, the roads of Sudzha are more important than the town itself. Secondary and even tertiary roads can be used but they are not as efficient as primary roads. How well and how long Ukraine fights in Kursk is heavily dependent on how well they can be supported.
At some point soon the fighting in Kursk will revert to attritional warfare again and we know in attritional warfare that time and distance are closely linked. With that in mind, the greatest threat to the Sudzha road hub right now is Russia’s proximity to the hub east of the town. Hopefully, in the coming days, Ukraine will be able to extend their perimeter to the east before attritional warfare takes over. This would provide Ukraine more time in Kursk.
In the end, though, Ukraine is under no obligation to remain in Russia. Preservation of its own forces remains Ukraine’s highest priority. Ukraine has already lost some men and equipment. Russia has lost a lot more, and if that ratio is high enough then this operation can be called successful. If the circumstances evolve to a point where the ratio isn’t high enough then Ukraine has to change the circumstances. This may or may not include a partial or full withdrawal.
In any case, Russia has been reminded once again that it needs to spend more of its manpower and equipment on defensive operations. This will detract from its all out offensive capabilities but if they fail to do so Ukraine might cross somewhere else along the 500 km of border where there is little activity.
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Here are some videos of Ukrainian troops moving into Kursk. A Ukrainian truck drives through the border, past dragon’s teeth and on a road that has been created through a minefield. They pass by a damaged Ukrainian vehicle with a mine roller.
A couple of posts of Russian border troops heading to Ukraine as prisoners, and another showing five Russians in the act of surrendering and 29 in captivity. Just under a hundred Russians surrendered in the first two days, some of whom hadn’t eaten in five days or showered in a month. The self-promoting Akhmat battalion loves to play as soldiers but they’ve repeatedly proven themselves ineffective and have been used as barrier troops to prevent other soldiers from running away. They ran away again from the fighting at Sudzha and many surrendered. Since then there is a report of “thousands” of Russians surrendering. Another report provides a more likely figure of “hundreds”, but there have been a lot of images of prisoners maybe a single thousand could be true. The number of prisoners did create logistical problems for Ukraine moving them to the rear while caring for them.
Ukraine was also overwhelmed with recovering damaged Ukrainian vehicles and abandoned Russian vehicles, like these two tanks in southeast Sudzha and another one near the town. There were many operable Russian vehicles with fuel and ammo that were abandoned. Ukraine also had to provide trucks to take possession of all the ammo at a depot they captured. The number of vehicles that need to be recovered is so high that Ukraine is reverting to an early war technique of using farm tractors.
Russia is constructing defensive positions 8-10 km south of the NPP and on the road to Kursk.
A Ukrainian T-62 is destroyed by a Lancet 5 km southwest of Kromskie Byki. Only Lancet drones seem to be functioning for Russia. On the other hand, this Ukrainian drone is able to hit a Russian truck with infantry somewhere in Kursk, as seen from a Ukrainian infantryman’s point of view.
There are many Russian reports of Russian drones being jammed, but the effect isn't total. A Russian drone watch Ukrainian BTRs approach the border only 2 km away. Another drone observes Ukrainians west of Sudzha. Six Cougar MRAP vehicles were knocked out in one location 15 km from the Ukrainian border and a Russian drone is involved. The next day, Ukraine began recovery operations of the vehicles. On Friday, Andrew Perpetua said the attack on the Cougar was the only FPV drone they observed in Kursk and his team views hundreds of videos a day. More Russian FPV drone activity has been published since then.
Russia has no problem dropping four bombs on their own village 4 km from the border. Just north of Mirnyi, two Russian Su-25s return from a mission while flying over a burning Russian tanker truck. Russian air attacks are fairly effective against static defenses but are challenged by a mobile battlefield, as it’s sometimes difficult for them to determine where both enemy and friendly troops are located. There is a report that they struck their own troops in one airstrike in Kursk, and 36 hours went by without any airstrikes in the region.
Since Russia doesn’t have enough troops on the front line or in reserves in this area they have to move them in from other locations. Large formation movements are an opportunity as they are vulnerable if detected and within range of a weapon system, particularly if stationary as this column was 100 km away near Kursk. 30 km from the front line (51.57802965532107, 34.80829238891602), a Russian column was set on fire by a GMLRS (HIMARS/MLRS) rocket. The Ukrainians observed the attack through a drone’s camera, and this was the view the next morning. Four GMLRS were used in 37 seconds and in that time many personnel fled their vehicles for cover, showing the importance of simultaneous impact. 13 trucks were damaged or destroyed in a 450 meter stretch of the road, 11 of them were within 130 meters of each other. About eight trucks at the head of the column were not targeted and were able to drive away. The 48-year-old that filmed the aftermath of this attack was arrested by the FSB for espionage and faces imprisonment for life.
Six Cougar MRAP vehicles were knocked out in one location 15 km from the Ukrainian border. The next day, Ukraine began recovery operations of the vehicles.
60 km to the south, Ukraine crossed the border again at Poroz. And Tyotkino. They also crossed in the Belovsky district of the Kursk region, about 20 km south of Sudzha.
When traveling long distances, tracked vehicles are loaded onto trailers and moved by trucks or train because it’s faster and it reduces wear and tear on the tracks. Two Russian transporters with tanks were hit by drones.
Russia is building defensive positions around the Kursk NPP. On the Ukrainian side, an excavator purchased through donations is moved to Kursk to help the 225th Battalion survive.
Some Ukrainian units were pulled from high intensity combat and sent into Kursk three days later. A Ukrainian general staff member said that Ukraine cannot extend its logistical support more than 80-100 km.
A Ka-52 was burning on the ground and a drone hits the tail rotor of a Russian helicopter. Previously, Ukrainian drones could not catch up to a moving helicopter. They said they were working on a drone that could intercept them.
A Ukrainian air defense system is destroyed near Sumy.
Russian sources are laying the blame for Kursk at Gerasimov’s feet, saying he moved troops out of the region to Kharkiv right before the operation began. That’s ironic because, as a classic Russian general, he was certainly not keen to reinforce other sectors of the frontline at the price of stripping down the defences of another. With other words: he certainly did not do so without an explicite order. And the only character in a position to issue orders to Gerasimov is the ultimate strategist of the 21st Century: certain ‘Pudding’. However, in Russia of that 21st Century, this does not matter: the Tsar is hollier than holly and therefore Gerasimov is to blame.
It’s similar in Washington D. C.: the US said that it was ok to use US equipment in Kursk. However, the restrictions on long-range weapons remained in their place.
(…to be continued…)
Thanks for the update
"a continuation of the attrition of the Russian army under more favorable circumstances."
I would be disappointed it it's 'just' that much.
... Well, there was a meme way back about taking the Kerch bridge through Belgorod, Rostov and Krasnodar... I know it was a joke but ... Oh, what a hearty laugh would that be ;)
I am wondering if the Ukrainians are preparing the original two defensive lines that Russia had near the border as their final fall back line. so the attritional warfare this will revert to will be on Russian soil for a change?