Ukraine Consolidates Kursk Gains As Russian Response Remains Slow, Disjointed

With the dropping of the three Sejm River bridges, Ukraine is consolidating its gains and potentially creating a significant and defensible piece of Russian territory. 

The Russian response remains confused and weak, suggesting that the Kremlin leadership is either conflicted about what to do, facing the reality that they cannot do much - or both. Ukraine has created a fact on the ground with relatively few casualties compared to Russia's ponderous and miniscule gains in Donbas. JL 

Phillips O'Brien reports in his substack:

Ukraine is carving out a large amount of Russian territory on its border which it can hold and supply, its destroying Russia’s ability to get logistics to much of the same area, and Ukraine is taking a large number of prisoners—including conscripts which pose a particular dilemma to Putin. The operation was designed to take advantage of the fact that Russia has few reserves (which is self-evident in how the Russians have responded to this offensive) and that in the end the Russians will have to divert force to try and stop the Ukrainians. So far the Russian response shows the Ukrainian assumptions were correct. The Russian response remains slow and disjointed.

Its been an interesting week to say the least with the Ukrainian offensive into Russia. Though much of the US press seems to present what’s happening in negative terms, all I can say is that the Ukrainians with whom I’m in contact are quite satisfied with the operation, believe it is in the process of achieving some significant strategic objectives, has already placed the Russian leadership in a bind, and highlighted some important shortcomings in the Russian military. Two other things will be discussed. First, the Ukrainians are continuing their campaign against Russian airfields, which is worthy of note, and third the Russian continue with their micro advances—which are getting reported on in a very odd fashion.

The Kursk Offensive Initial Goals: Taking Shape?

Ukrainian forces back in Ukraine after taking part in operations in Kursk.

The Ukrainian offensive in Russia has taken approximately as much territory in 11 days than the Russians have taken in Ukraine in 2024—and if things continue it will take more. The Kursk bulge that the Ukrainians have taken has steadily expanded this week, being pushed out to the North, East and West. Here is a conservative map of what the Ukrainians held las Sunday.

Here is the same map in its most recent iteration—so you can see the areas of expansion.

The Ukrainians have consolidated their hold over Sudzha as a base of operations, and are pushing out in all directions. Moreover, something extremely interesting happened in the last few days, the Ukrainians started taking down the bridges over the Seym river, which control access to the Russian territory to the west of the salient the Ukrainians are already cutting out. The Ukrainian Air Force even released pictures of one of the bridges after being destroyed.

This is a really useful map of the area that is affected by the bridges being destroyed (so far it looks like one of the bridges is gone and the other is so heavily damaged that it cant take vehicles One imagines the third bridge will be hit soon.

For note, the striped area is that area supplied by the bridges, the greenish brown is the present area Ukraine has seized, and the yellow brown is Ukraine and the pink is Russia.

If the Ukrainians can make it impossible for the Russians to supply troops south of the Seym (the striped area) they will at a minimum provide a secure flank to their offensive. The Russian military is ponderous, and needs heavy logistical supply to undertake operations. Without bridges, its hard to see the Russians supplying the needed forces to keep that area effectively militarized.

The other option is that the Ukrainians might try to occupy that whole area as part of a very large salient. That would give them a large chunk of land to trade, would require Russia to divert more and more troops to protect its own territory, etc. It would also provide more security for Sumy, etc.

Indeed there is a great of guessing by western analysts about Ukrainian aims—much of it seemingly to justify the analytical communities own failures to understand what was happening at first when this was dismissed as a sideshow raid that if anything would hurt the Ukrainian war effort. At this point I think we can safely say that the western analytic community has its flaws. Instead, I will give you an Ukrainian explanation of what is happening—from Andriy Zagorodnyuk (who I spoke too before last week’s update). Andriy is a former Ukrainian Defense Minister and runs a Ukrainian strategic studies think tank. He gave an interview for the Atlantic Council which you can see here.

Andriy says the operation was designed to take advantage of the fact that Russia has few reserves (which is self-evident in how the Russians have responded to this offensive) and that in the end the Russians will have to divert force to try and stop the Ukrainians.

So far the Russian response shows the Ukrainian assumptions were correct. The Russians had deployed almost no forces on their own border (remarkable as it is) and have so far tried to throw together forces from inside Russia, including conscripts, to try and control the situation. Of course these scratch forces are failing, and many conscripts have already become Ukrainian prisoners.

However the disjointed nature of the Russian response is a sigh that the Russian government does not want to face the reality of the situation it has gotten itself into. Either they will have to send a large force to try and contain the Ukrainians, or they will basically allow Ukraine to set up a large and defensible salient in Russia, from which the Ukrainians can launch operations at any time. The fact that the Russians are acting slowly to respond is a sign of their systemic weakness in command and control—and a good thing for Ukraine.

Indeed, what we see in this case is a fascinating contrast to the Russians own offensive into Kharkiv—where the Ukrainians did act quickly to contain their enemy.

So the offensive is progressing well. Ukraine is carving out a large amount of Russian territory on its border which it can hold and supply, its destroying Russia’s ability to get logistics to much of the same area, and Ukraine is taking a large number of prisoners—including conscripts which pose a particular dilemma to Putin. Moreover, the Russian response remains slow and disjointed.

Its why the Ukrainians I’m talking too are more than happy with the last week of the Kursk Offensive, even if some western analysts are not.

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The Campaign Against Russian Airfields

What is noteworthy about the Ukrainian offensive into Kursk is that it is running in tandem with a Ukrainian ranged campaign against Russian airfields. This week the Ukrainians launched what they claimed was their largest coordinated UAV attack on Russian airfields yet. There were reportedly takes at four m

A Russian Airfield reportedly damaged after this week’s attacks.

An unnamed Ukrainian official was quoted as follows:

“It was our strongest attack since the start of the war. A fun night today at the airfields of Voronezh, Kursk, Savasleyka and Borisoglebsk — airfields from where Russian jets bomb our front-line cities with unstoppable glided bombs,”

This coordination between the offensive and the ranged campaign is useful. The bases targeted, once again, seem ones from which glide bombs have been launched by the Russians (one of their most effective weapons). The Ukrainians have found trying to shoot down these glide bombs extremely difficult—so they are trying to damage the bases from which they are launched.

Is it working? We cant say. What I have not seen, for what its worth, is the sign of many large Russian glide bomb attacks against the Ukrainian Kursk offensive. If the attacks are helping with that—good.

Russian MicroAdvances Continue.

The Russians keep doing what they have been doing in the Donbas, but if you read the press you would think they are advancing more quickly and effectively. The New York Times wrote one of the best examples of an over the top analysis of these advances, which actually never discussed relative advance rates, how long its taken to achieve certain milestones, etc. Here is how the article it started.

Russian troops are closing in on the strategic eastern Ukrainian town of Pokrovsk, according to open-source battlefield maps, casting doubts on Ukraine’s hopes that its new offensive into western Russia will prompt Moscow to scale back its attacks elsewhere on the battlefield.

After capturing several villages in the area and pushing along a railway line, Russian forces are now about eight miles from Pokrovsk, one of Ukraine’s main defensive strongholds in the Donetsk region, according to the maps, which are based on combat footage and satellite images.

The idea that Russian troops are “closing in” on Pokrovsk would make more sense if it were put in perspective. This is the Deep State Map as of yesterday (16 August), It actually had the Russians further away from Pokrovsk—about 17 kilometres (more than 11 miles)

If you reverse the distance marker back to Ocheretyne, you will see that it is only an advance of 15 km (10 miles) or so.

When did the Russians reach the center of Ocheretyne—well that would be late April. Here is the map on April 28.

So yes, Russia is advancing, but this still needs to be put into perspective. These remain slow, microadvances at high costs. Moreover, the Russian advances in other areas seem to be stalled. One of my favorite is how the analysts have stopped talking about Chasiv Yar, which was supposedly the big Russian target for the first part of 2024. In April the New York Times even wrote a story about how Chasiv Yar was Russia’s great focus.

Now, no one is talking about Chasiv Yar, as the Russian attack seems to have ground down. Here was a map of Chasiv Yar a month ago.

Here it is today.

In a month the Russians might have pushed forward a kilometre or two—and remember that earlier in 2024 it was said that Putin wanted to take Chasiv Yar by his May inaugural. Now its hardly mentioned.

So yes, the Russians continue with their slow and bloody advances. They are, however, not taking places as of yet with any strategic importance. Moreover, their advances are not picking up any appreciable pace.

Compared to the Ukrainian offensive they are ponderous stuff.