Ukraine's Main Kursk Salient Remains Intact As Russian Attacks Have Stalled

Over the past ten days, Russia's Kursk counteroffensive has stalled as predictable attack routes, lack of covering artillery fire - and well designed Ukrainian defenses have decimated the Russian assault forces. 

The Russians' goal of taking back Ukrainian occupied Kursk by January 20th appears to have been predicated, once again, on Russian underestimation of Ukrainian capabilities. As a result, Russian forces have failed to achieve their objective. JL

Phillips O'Brien reports in his substack:

In the last 10 days, Russian attempts to take back any of their Kursk holdings have mostly stalled. The main salient Ukraine has seized in Kursk remains intact.  Putin dispatched 50,000 or troops, including 10,000 North Koreans, to try and retake it. If so, its been a very difficult task for the Russians. So far even very limited ranged (long distant attacks with ATACMS rockets) strikes seems to have the ability to shape what is happening on the battlefield since the Ukrainians were given that permission. 

Ranged Fire and the Battlefield

Well its now been two weeks since the Biden Administration, begrudgingly and in a limited fashion, allowed Ukraine to fire at military targets in Russia. I talked about that last weekend if you want to go back and have a look.

 

I think we can say that the limitations I talked about in last week’s piece are still very much in force. Ukraine doesn’t have that many US weapons that can make such attacks. There have bee a few notable ATACMS strikes on targets supporting the Russian Kursk Offensive, but only a handful. Moreover, all the strikes so far have been in the general Kursk area, so it seems unlikely that Ukraine can use US systems in other theatres—for instance in helping Ukraine attack Russian logistics or command/control supporting Russian attacks in the Donbas.

We need to be careful to say what the Ukrainians have attacked around Kursk, but they do seem to be going for logistics and command/control with their now enabled range strike. They opened up by attacking a command centre which seems to have held a number of North Korean officers. There have also reportedly been attacks on Russian airfields and Russian depots which could support Russian offensive action in Kursk.

So while the information is still small in number, its consistent in targeting (only Russian targets supporting their attempts to retake Kursk). Does it matter. Far too early to say. Considering the small number of attacks Ukraine has been able to make, one doesn’t want to jump to conclusions. That being said, its worth noting that in the last 10 days, Russian attempts to take back any of their Kursk holdings have mostly stalled. Here is the Deep State Map just after the ranged strikes started.

And here is the most recent.

A small change around the edge, but he main salient Ukraine has seized in Kursk remains intact.

And retaking this salient remains one of Putin’s highest priorities. It was said he had dispatched 50,000 or troops, including 10,000 North Koreans, to try and retake it. If so, its been a very difficult task for the Russians since the Ukrainians were given the ability to make ranged strike.

Lets see how it plays out over the coming days, but so far even very limited range strike seems to have the ability to shape what is happening on the battlefield.