- Russia looks to have moved thousands of troops from the front lines in Ukraine to defend Kursk.
- One of Ukraine’s likely goals with the Kursk incursion was to force Russia to thin out its troops.
- But these represent only a small proportion of the forces Russia is deploying to defend the area.
Yeah I mean this is true for both. Ukraine moved troops off the front, where they are slowly losing ground, to make this assault. Unless they can hold that territory and the line in the east I dunno if this was worth it
I’m no military guy, but as far as I understand it using troops trained in combined arms maneuver warfare to hold a trench line is a bit of a misuse of their skillset. Kinda like using an entire delivery van to transport your weekly shopping.
Why not use the troops in an environment they can truly excel and force a disproportionate response?
Also, it isn’t exactly true that these troops were pulled off the eastern front. More accurate to say they weren’t deployed there, so there’s an opportunity cost.
But the article says they thinned out the front line for this operation, whatever that means.
I feel like there is a well-earned reaction to the lemmygrad and hexbear folks that makes any opinion questioning Ukraine get obliterated, and on balance that’s probably fine, but I want Ukraine to win. I am just a little confused about why they did this. Russia has hundreds of thousands of troops in Ukraine. Sending a couple thousand Ukrainian troops into Russia feels like desperation, not strategy
I would think that Ukrainian military senior staff know a bit more of what they’re doing than us armchair generals. In terms of the full explanation, I’m sure we’ll get that much later down the line (likely after the war). In terms of the desperation, I guess a bit of that has to be involved. They wouldn’t need to do this if they were winning easily in the east, but that’s where basically all the Russian military is alongside extensive fortifications, minefields, pre-sited artillery, etc.
It’s likely also got a political angle to it too. Undermining the myth of the strong Czar protecting his people, and forcing tough decisions about how to use conscripts, some of which are from wealthy and influential cities (unlike the contract soldiers).
Ukraine doesn’t need that land. russia cannot afford not defending that land. The moment it gets too “expensive” for Ukraine, they withdraw. But that will only happen after russia invests heavily into actually recovering their territory.
It’s like in chess when a knight is attacking two pieces at the same time. The one on defense can only choose a smaller loss.
Which is a win for Ukraine.
I mean you can’t withdraw if you get encircled
I believe the trick to avoid getting encircled is withdrawing before one gets encircled
It’s simple, just don’t get shot
Look at Sun Tzu over here
It’s not that large of an incursion force, I think something like 2k of some of their better troops who would normally be acting as a quick ground reaction force. So they aren’t really moving people off of the front line, though they may have lost the ability to quickly reinforce one front or another.
From what I’ve seen, the salient is being used to probe the strength of the Russian’s western flank. It doesn’t appear that Russia was expecting an offensive, and didn’t have their own version of a quick reaction force held in reserve.
Unless the Russians can move men and more importantly artillery to the area, there’s a risk the salient could be used to roll their western flank, cutting of their border guards from their supply lines.
And with all those feeling civilians I’ll bet several sabotage groups made it into Russia too.