You wrote: «atop of, ‘that’s not for what you’ve clicked on the link to the Sarcastosaurus’…»…. Yes, I want the other stuff, but I consider this a bonus.
Thank you for your thorough analysis of the events in Kursk oblast. A lot of "experts" are rather pessimistic concerning the results of Ukrainian offensive becaese a) it did not provoke the immediate relocation of Russian troops attacking Pokrovsk and b) it did not cause protests etc. in Russia. As to withdrawal of the troops fighting in Donbass now we may be sure that Putler will fight there to the last Russian soldier. And most probably we may consider some plot of the military command or FSB as a cosequence of failures in Kursk.
You got the point there. Quoteexpertsunquote expect immediate effects, otherwise the thing is irrelevant. If there were protests in Russia, I could absolutely see them topple Putin instead of being beaten up by police.
What there is not much talk about is that the Russians may have continued their grind in Donetsk, but if they keep taking hefty losses - which they are - , it will not be that easy to reinforce them even further if reserves from everywhere else go to Kursk. If the offensive finally peters out after taking a few streets of Pokrovsk, it's pretty much as good as an operational failure.
Sure, that would be inconvenient. But they would need to secure the whole area, including nearby towns, to cut off Kurakhove to the south or proceed further west and do a major land grab. At the same time, they are close to cutting the Kostiantynivka road to the east regardless of Pokrovsk anyway.
I have just read a new article by Andrew Tanner published in Novoye Vremya in Ukraine. Maybe you will enjoy reading it as I had. As to the proceedings of the battle in Donbass it seems to be more and more wishful thinking of Putler because he is strongly limited by the lack of reserves and as to participation of the new conscripts in active fighting. Today 115 Ukrainian prisoners were exchanged for 115 Russian conscripts taken in the Kursk offensive the whole operation being forced by Russia in the most extraornary way.
It is interesting. And it seems that 50 members of the Azovsoldiers regiments were released. Obviously the mothers were tanken seriously…. Whereas for two and a half years neither the mothers nor the wives tried to get their men free.
The post-USSR countries still live with the trauma of conscripts dying in the foreign land of Afghanistan for a decade. Neither Russia nor Ukraine wants that memory to revive and match the ongoing war, thus both countries avoid sending conscripts to the war.
They were released and transported to Turkey and thereafter transported to Ukraine and even to the frontlane to continue service. This exchange was accomplished to release Putler's crony Medvedchuk. And after that no Azov fighters were released.
Thank you for the update, including the rant in the beginning. I am not surprised that the Ukrainian offensive has a pause, is temporary stopped. Even permanentes stopped. Neither am I dismayed because of this. Dismayed will come only if the Ukrainians suffer heavy losses. Withdrawing will slo not Disney me, Ukraine doesnt want that territory. Regarding the lack of removal of forces from elsewhere, I think there is an effect, but it may take longer to materialize. Because the rebuilding was redirected the units in the Donbas did not get so much/will not get so much resources as planned. And finally, Russia must now keep their forces on the whole Ukrainian border. Add to that the kuddling and prisoning… no dismayed now. Shit may happen later of course.
Denis, you are building castles în the sky. There is no mention of declining number of new russian contract soldiers.
The fall of Povrovsk will allow Russia to attack many Ukrainian units în the rear and flanks. There will be a cascade of Ukrainian retreats. Many Ukrainian units will become combat ineffective due to loss of equipment and veteran soldiers.Ukraine must abandon Kursk at once.
There is no mention of endless Russian troops either.
They will lose all their experienced forces while attacking Pokrovsk, will be unable to refill their equipment, will become combat-ineffective and will have to stop short of taking the town.
There are also some other sources that are saying that compared to 4th quarter of 2023 the 2nd quarter of 2024 brought 3 times less contracts signed. And if you roughly take Moscow as 10% of total (as they say in their article), then for July the total was around 12K, with a need just for replacement of 35K. Currently in battle ready units there are no more then 200K soldiers in vsrf, the rest are serving to replace losses, as rotation of units goes.
So just watch this, there were 8 operational directions with active attacks. After UA added 9th in Kursk, see how many of them will remain active. And to keep a direction active at least a battle ready division needed, most often two (to rotate in and out). Which is anything in between 10K to 30K battle ready soldiers. So watch and do your maths, not simply poke your finger in the sky.
But I think that you are mistaken about Pudding and “his orders.” Not that I intimately know his thinking, neither I’m his Rasputin, err Kabaeva … but I’m sure that he has given pretty clear orders ZSU to be flushed out of Kursk at all costs. For propaganda reasons, of course he is not publicizing his orders (nothing worse for a dictator to be seen incapable of imposing his will). Yeah Kursk - small advance, small city, who cares!? - that is just his pose for the public but every Russian knows Kursk, no one Pokrovsk or Toretsk. And Putin has charged the guys that are closest to him with this paramountly important task - FSB and his former bodyguard. Of course, they don’t want to be seen as failure and are free to ask everything from Gerasimov, who is now in a weak position and will be the ultimate scapegoat. That is why we are going to see more and more elite units being sent to Kursk and this is no contradiction with Putin’s orders.
As usually you misunderstood the way Putin is acting correctly. If Putins orders are followed, the strategic genius is followed. If Putins orders are not followed, this os because Putin successfully deceived his enemies. So he is always perfect.
As you are married, you should be able to understand that.
While I have been faithfully making my cross at every election in which I was allowed to participate, over the last decades I have become increasingly frustrated with the choices available for these elections. I believe that our democracies are suffering from an advanced case of Tweedism (I don't care who does the electing, so long as I get to do the nominating), leading to an ever deteriorating selection of candidates.
So, I'm afraid our democracies are not savable by simply voting for another party. Something fundamental would have to change and I fear those changes would have many side effects that are just as or maybe more undesirable than what we are stuck with right now.
Since one imagines that at least part of the reason for doing this incursion was to draw off Russian forces from the East, the fact that as those Eastern forces start to be deployed in Kursk that Ukrainian advances slow or stop is not a surprise.
The really interesting bit, though, is about to start.
Will the lack of secure communications over the Seym mean that the Russian forces pull out of the area south of the river and provide the Ukrainians with a defensible line for a large area they can hold over the winter?
Will the withdrawal of forces from Donetsk mean that Russian advances there can be at least halted, if not partially reversed for the winter?
Will the Ukrainians be able to inflict sufficiently disproportional losses on the Russians as/when they decide to take back Kursk to make the incursion even more worthwhile.
Will the West finally realise that Russia is at zero risk of nuking anybody for anything if they have not already nuked Ukraine for invading the holy Mother Russia and give them all the long range fires they want and give also them free reign to target anything inside Russia they want.
If taking back Kursk starts to really chew up more Russian resources over the winter and the Russian people (and oligarchs) really start to feel a pinch, will it put truly unkind thoughts in certain people's heads?
Will the current displacement and eventual return of 200,000 Russian citizens living that much closer to Moscow to ruined lives in Kursk force even more unpleasant news into the Russian infosphere? News that can not be contained and that foments additional unrest in Russia?
Will the fact that the, internally at least, much vaunted VSRF and FSB forces could not keep the holy land of Mother Russia safe from a "rag tag band of terrorists" cause those in other parts to have impure thoughts about the power of the Russian state?
Stay tuned as only time will tell if there are any lasting effects from these small cracks the Ukrainians have started in the Russian dam. There may not be.
- There are no independent oligarchs in Russia. Only Ukraine had them (thus it remained democratic thanks to the infights of its oligarchs), and now Zelensky seems to have got them under his control, so that there is nobody to oppose him.
>> unpleasant news into the Russian infosphere
- The Russian government is successfully disabling Telegram during unpleasant events. Their VK social network and Yandex search engine are completely under the government control. They have blocked YouTube a week ago.
Are you sure Zelensky has all the oligarchs and everything under his control? I don't think so. Maybe your oligarchs simply don't want to break their legs now showing that they follow their own interests during the war and not the patriotic interest of supporting the AFU and the stability of the country. After the war is over we will see all their games back.
I hope so. However, almost all the parliament parties have voted for banning the Russian Orthodox Church, which is (was?) the largest church of Ukraine. Thus, at least right now, they all went ultra-nationalist, which is really bad for diversity and human rights.
I agree with you on diversity, but I guess it's an extraordinary situation and the church heads have shown sympathy for Moscow all the time since the war started. I am no expert, but I think the independent Ukrainian orthodox church is the same church but with a different head and not obeying to the Moscow Patriarch. This is not at all bad.
The priests of Ukrainian Orthodox Church are under anathema from Russian Orthodox Church since they split (schismatized) in 1990s. The anathema can be removed only by a Universal Council (which never happens) as all the Patriarchs are peers, thus one Patriarch cannot cancel acts of another one.
Thus the Ukrainian government presses the believers (4% of population or so) into the choice to get under anathema of the church they were baptized in and attended for the duration of their lives - or to become outlaws, as the older of them were in Soviet times. Guess what they'll choose.
As far as I know, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is recognised by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and by most of the other Orthodox Churches. I don't think the anathema of Kirill means much to the majority of the baptised (I won't say "believers" 🙂). I know there are a lot of hardiners, including some from the Romanian minority. But this will pass with time. Interesting is that there is a very similar situation in Moldova, were the main Church is also under Kirill (probably soviet era heritage in fact), but there is also among the priests a movement of unification with the Romanian autocephalus church. And there is anathema and fighting there too - so in fact politics. An autocephslus/independent church could play an important role in the society. It will definitely be criticised, but also respected if it honors the Christian values.
Fortunately there are just enough Russian troops left behind and in hard to sustain positions to get the daily chill for some more time before it's back to trenches again.
Once one was over with the initial shock the progress of events was quite predictable: the clumsiness of the Russian response what gave almost one more week to be exploited was so far the only real surprise.
...and that makes one wonder: if it is so predictable then sure some continuation was planned, more can be expected... What else could be pulled out of that Ukrainian bag of tricks :)
"it’s going to be a long, long day"
tja, dann gehe ich mal einkaufen um danach in aller Ruhe "…to be continued…" lesen und geniessen.
schönen samstag noch, Tom🙋🏻♂️
You wrote: «atop of, ‘that’s not for what you’ve clicked on the link to the Sarcastosaurus’…»…. Yes, I want the other stuff, but I consider this a bonus.
Thank you for your thorough analysis of the events in Kursk oblast. A lot of "experts" are rather pessimistic concerning the results of Ukrainian offensive becaese a) it did not provoke the immediate relocation of Russian troops attacking Pokrovsk and b) it did not cause protests etc. in Russia. As to withdrawal of the troops fighting in Donbass now we may be sure that Putler will fight there to the last Russian soldier. And most probably we may consider some plot of the military command or FSB as a cosequence of failures in Kursk.
"it did not provoke the immediate relocation"
You got the point there. Quoteexpertsunquote expect immediate effects, otherwise the thing is irrelevant. If there were protests in Russia, I could absolutely see them topple Putin instead of being beaten up by police.
What there is not much talk about is that the Russians may have continued their grind in Donetsk, but if they keep taking hefty losses - which they are - , it will not be that easy to reinforce them even further if reserves from everywhere else go to Kursk. If the offensive finally peters out after taking a few streets of Pokrovsk, it's pretty much as good as an operational failure.
If they get to Pokrovsk, it will cease to be useful for logistics.
Sure, that would be inconvenient. But they would need to secure the whole area, including nearby towns, to cut off Kurakhove to the south or proceed further west and do a major land grab. At the same time, they are close to cutting the Kostiantynivka road to the east regardless of Pokrovsk anyway.
I have just read a new article by Andrew Tanner published in Novoye Vremya in Ukraine. Maybe you will enjoy reading it as I had. As to the proceedings of the battle in Donbass it seems to be more and more wishful thinking of Putler because he is strongly limited by the lack of reserves and as to participation of the new conscripts in active fighting. Today 115 Ukrainian prisoners were exchanged for 115 Russian conscripts taken in the Kursk offensive the whole operation being forced by Russia in the most extraornary way.
It is interesting. And it seems that 50 members of the Azovsoldiers regiments were released. Obviously the mothers were tanken seriously…. Whereas for two and a half years neither the mothers nor the wives tried to get their men free.
The post-USSR countries still live with the trauma of conscripts dying in the foreign land of Afghanistan for a decade. Neither Russia nor Ukraine wants that memory to revive and match the ongoing war, thus both countries avoid sending conscripts to the war.
Russia got its conscripts back in this exchange.
They were released and transported to Turkey and thereafter transported to Ukraine and even to the frontlane to continue service. This exchange was accomplished to release Putler's crony Medvedchuk. And after that no Azov fighters were released.
I think the city of Sumy now should be better off, as any🪆 artillery now couldn't shell it if I'm correct
Thank you for the update, including the rant in the beginning. I am not surprised that the Ukrainian offensive has a pause, is temporary stopped. Even permanentes stopped. Neither am I dismayed because of this. Dismayed will come only if the Ukrainians suffer heavy losses. Withdrawing will slo not Disney me, Ukraine doesnt want that territory. Regarding the lack of removal of forces from elsewhere, I think there is an effect, but it may take longer to materialize. Because the rebuilding was redirected the units in the Donbas did not get so much/will not get so much resources as planned. And finally, Russia must now keep their forces on the whole Ukrainian border. Add to that the kuddling and prisoning… no dismayed now. Shit may happen later of course.
Pokrovsk is cracking and russian riflemen are strolling through Ukrainian defences.
Ukrainian Government should decide if PR is more relevant than reality
A soldier killed near Kursk or in Africa is a soldier not attacking Pokrovsk.
Simple logic. Makes you wonder about supply lines, ammunition consumption and unit cohesion. Those never exist just like în cheap video games.
The one-time payment to a recruit has reached 1M RUB in Moscow. This means there are few men willing to die, even for a significant amount of money.
Denis, you are building castles în the sky. There is no mention of declining number of new russian contract soldiers.
The fall of Povrovsk will allow Russia to attack many Ukrainian units în the rear and flanks. There will be a cascade of Ukrainian retreats. Many Ukrainian units will become combat ineffective due to loss of equipment and veteran soldiers.Ukraine must abandon Kursk at once.
There is no mention of endless Russian troops either.
They will lose all their experienced forces while attacking Pokrovsk, will be unable to refill their equipment, will become combat-ineffective and will have to stop short of taking the town.
If you say something, just at least do not take your wishful thinking for a fact. Just google something, compare and think. I understand that you are happy just say whatever you believe. But here for example the facts: https://verstka.media/moskva-za-god-otpravila-na-vojnu-bolee-26-tysyach-chelovek-bolshinstvo-iz-nih-priezzhie
There are also some other sources that are saying that compared to 4th quarter of 2023 the 2nd quarter of 2024 brought 3 times less contracts signed. And if you roughly take Moscow as 10% of total (as they say in their article), then for July the total was around 12K, with a need just for replacement of 35K. Currently in battle ready units there are no more then 200K soldiers in vsrf, the rest are serving to replace losses, as rotation of units goes.
So just watch this, there were 8 operational directions with active attacks. After UA added 9th in Kursk, see how many of them will remain active. And to keep a direction active at least a battle ready division needed, most often two (to rotate in and out). Which is anything in between 10K to 30K battle ready soldiers. So watch and do your maths, not simply poke your finger in the sky.
This was a delight to read.
Thanks Tom!
But I think that you are mistaken about Pudding and “his orders.” Not that I intimately know his thinking, neither I’m his Rasputin, err Kabaeva … but I’m sure that he has given pretty clear orders ZSU to be flushed out of Kursk at all costs. For propaganda reasons, of course he is not publicizing his orders (nothing worse for a dictator to be seen incapable of imposing his will). Yeah Kursk - small advance, small city, who cares!? - that is just his pose for the public but every Russian knows Kursk, no one Pokrovsk or Toretsk. And Putin has charged the guys that are closest to him with this paramountly important task - FSB and his former bodyguard. Of course, they don’t want to be seen as failure and are free to ask everything from Gerasimov, who is now in a weak position and will be the ultimate scapegoat. That is why we are going to see more and more elite units being sent to Kursk and this is no contradiction with Putin’s orders.
Dear Tom,
As usually you misunderstood the way Putin is acting correctly. If Putins orders are followed, the strategic genius is followed. If Putins orders are not followed, this os because Putin successfully deceived his enemies. So he is always perfect.
As you are married, you should be able to understand that.
Kind regards
Tom, looking forward to your air/missile war report. So many rumors about Neptune with expanded range, about drone-missile..
While I have been faithfully making my cross at every election in which I was allowed to participate, over the last decades I have become increasingly frustrated with the choices available for these elections. I believe that our democracies are suffering from an advanced case of Tweedism (I don't care who does the electing, so long as I get to do the nominating), leading to an ever deteriorating selection of candidates.
So, I'm afraid our democracies are not savable by simply voting for another party. Something fundamental would have to change and I fear those changes would have many side effects that are just as or maybe more undesirable than what we are stuck with right now.
Nothing short of literal Apocalypse may help. I'd bet for about 2070, 2 millennia since the destruction of Jerusalem.
delightful and concise...Thanks, Tom.
Thank you very much. And I do agree wholeheartedly with your introduction … yes, we are on the verge of slipping…
Since one imagines that at least part of the reason for doing this incursion was to draw off Russian forces from the East, the fact that as those Eastern forces start to be deployed in Kursk that Ukrainian advances slow or stop is not a surprise.
The really interesting bit, though, is about to start.
Will the lack of secure communications over the Seym mean that the Russian forces pull out of the area south of the river and provide the Ukrainians with a defensible line for a large area they can hold over the winter?
Will the withdrawal of forces from Donetsk mean that Russian advances there can be at least halted, if not partially reversed for the winter?
Will the Ukrainians be able to inflict sufficiently disproportional losses on the Russians as/when they decide to take back Kursk to make the incursion even more worthwhile.
Will the West finally realise that Russia is at zero risk of nuking anybody for anything if they have not already nuked Ukraine for invading the holy Mother Russia and give them all the long range fires they want and give also them free reign to target anything inside Russia they want.
If taking back Kursk starts to really chew up more Russian resources over the winter and the Russian people (and oligarchs) really start to feel a pinch, will it put truly unkind thoughts in certain people's heads?
Will the current displacement and eventual return of 200,000 Russian citizens living that much closer to Moscow to ruined lives in Kursk force even more unpleasant news into the Russian infosphere? News that can not be contained and that foments additional unrest in Russia?
Will the fact that the, internally at least, much vaunted VSRF and FSB forces could not keep the holy land of Mother Russia safe from a "rag tag band of terrorists" cause those in other parts to have impure thoughts about the power of the Russian state?
Stay tuned as only time will tell if there are any lasting effects from these small cracks the Ukrainians have started in the Russian dam. There may not be.
But, then again, there might.
>> the Russian people (and oligarchs)
- There are no independent oligarchs in Russia. Only Ukraine had them (thus it remained democratic thanks to the infights of its oligarchs), and now Zelensky seems to have got them under his control, so that there is nobody to oppose him.
>> unpleasant news into the Russian infosphere
- The Russian government is successfully disabling Telegram during unpleasant events. Their VK social network and Yandex search engine are completely under the government control. They have blocked YouTube a week ago.
Are you sure Zelensky has all the oligarchs and everything under his control? I don't think so. Maybe your oligarchs simply don't want to break their legs now showing that they follow their own interests during the war and not the patriotic interest of supporting the AFU and the stability of the country. After the war is over we will see all their games back.
I hope so. However, almost all the parliament parties have voted for banning the Russian Orthodox Church, which is (was?) the largest church of Ukraine. Thus, at least right now, they all went ultra-nationalist, which is really bad for diversity and human rights.
I agree with you on diversity, but I guess it's an extraordinary situation and the church heads have shown sympathy for Moscow all the time since the war started. I am no expert, but I think the independent Ukrainian orthodox church is the same church but with a different head and not obeying to the Moscow Patriarch. This is not at all bad.
The priests of Ukrainian Orthodox Church are under anathema from Russian Orthodox Church since they split (schismatized) in 1990s. The anathema can be removed only by a Universal Council (which never happens) as all the Patriarchs are peers, thus one Patriarch cannot cancel acts of another one.
Thus the Ukrainian government presses the believers (4% of population or so) into the choice to get under anathema of the church they were baptized in and attended for the duration of their lives - or to become outlaws, as the older of them were in Soviet times. Guess what they'll choose.
A decent overview is here: https://meduza.io/feature/2024/08/23/verhovnaya-rada-zapretila-deyatelnost-upts-ugrozhaet-li-eto-samim-veruyuschim-a-svyaschennikam-i-chto-teper-budet-s-hramami-i-prihodami
They could enter a communion with the Roman Catholic Church. The pope can cancel any of this stuff, he has no peers.
As far as I know, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church is recognised by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and by most of the other Orthodox Churches. I don't think the anathema of Kirill means much to the majority of the baptised (I won't say "believers" 🙂). I know there are a lot of hardiners, including some from the Romanian minority. But this will pass with time. Interesting is that there is a very similar situation in Moldova, were the main Church is also under Kirill (probably soviet era heritage in fact), but there is also among the priests a movement of unification with the Romanian autocephalus church. And there is anathema and fighting there too - so in fact politics. An autocephslus/independent church could play an important role in the society. It will definitely be criticised, but also respected if it honors the Christian values.
Thanks for the update
Fortunately there are just enough Russian troops left behind and in hard to sustain positions to get the daily chill for some more time before it's back to trenches again.
Once one was over with the initial shock the progress of events was quite predictable: the clumsiness of the Russian response what gave almost one more week to be exploited was so far the only real surprise.
...and that makes one wonder: if it is so predictable then sure some continuation was planned, more can be expected... What else could be pulled out of that Ukrainian bag of tricks :)
Thank you for update, Tom. Especially the first part is brilliant. Kudos for your civic position and your point of view.
‘that’s not for what you’ve clicked on the link to the Sarcastosaurus’. That’s where you’re wrong bucko… 😉