"Battle of Kursk", 2024-style

Last week, a little OT exchange took place BTL here, thus:

Anon:  What I’m not so sure of is if this is a Stalingrad moment (in reverse), or if it’s the Third Battle of Kharkov in reverse, where von Manstein recaptured a lot of the territory being fought over now.

ND:  Not sure everything needs to be mapped onto a historical precedent**; although when it can be done convincingly, it can offer useful insights.  What’s interesting to me about this (apparently significant) Ukrainian incursion is:  (i) they – the Ukr side – are following Soviet doctrine! Many writers have suggested it was unwise (see 2023 offensive campaign) to attempt to school them in western military ways, when so many of their senior officers would already be very well educated in a different school. Or they may have found some kind of workable synthesis.  (ii) they seem to have managed Surprise: certainly tactical (generally possible if you put in enough care & attention) but maybe even strategic (unusual – but very desirable). Remember, this is a chess game where both sides can usually see all the opponent’s pieces – the perennial Russian challenge out on the flatlands, and one which in the west (Eu, USA) we don’t really have, the battlegrounds being characterised so much by extensive geographical relief features

A week on, things have developed a bit: we know it genuinely is a significant incursion, not merely a quick slash-and-burn raid.  But the full motivation and end-plan for what Ukraine thinks it’s doing is still a matter of analysis & speculation.  Here’s mine:

Backdrop:  for as long as the Russian army can maintain its brutal discipline (i.e. can keep throwing in the cannon-fodder remorselessly) there is nothing plausible that Ukraine can do, however resourced by the west, against eventual Russian “success” in fully capturing and occupying the four Ukranian oblasts it claims as its own, absent something game-changing.  (Just for the record, from the very beginning my line on this has been “and what’s to stop them?“)   One Russian milblogger has put this very neatly, describing the Russian operation as a tunnel-boring machine: it may sometimes need to slow down if it encounters something a bit flintier than usual, but basically it will “calmly” (his word) grind on relentlessly to wherever it wants to go.

Although in hindsight one can fault the 2023 Ukrainian counter-offensive (some of that fault lying squarely with western advisers), it proved beyond a doubt that Russian defensive preparations along the entire front as far as the Dnipro (though not necessarily south and west of that) are sound, and that without massive airpower that Ukraine will never enjoy, no sustained, strategically useful breakthrough on that very long front is achievable.

Therefore:  since nobody can foresee a Russian event “favourable” to breaking this iron deadlock – certainly not before the US election – more creativity is required from Ukraine.  Up until now, that’s been represented by (a) a stunningly successful Black Sea operation; (b) an equally stunning drone campaign against the vast swathe of ultra-vulnerable targets across heartland western Russia, particularly oil facilities – and air bases,/ aviation ammo dumps which have taken some really serious blows.  (Note something else we’ve said from the start: Russia can replace absolutely anything except its airforce, which has caused Putin to husband it cautiously.)  But neither can be much more than a major, suppurating thorn in the bear’s flesh, the pain and cost of which it can tolerate indefinitely. 

That being the July 2024 starting-point, Something Else had to be tried before November.  Well, this is it, and it looks entirely logical.  Apart from making the really obvious remark that the Russian ground currently dominated by Ukraine cannot remotely be held for more than a few weeks at the outside – and so Zelensky won’t be intending to – I won’t today be prognosticating on this ground offensive per se.  There are however a few more remarks we can make, in addition to the truly impressive ‘surprise’ mentioned above.

1. The Soviet-plus-western doctrinal synthesis being displayed by Ukraine is very 2024, and very nicely purposed to the precise conditions.  For a strategist, this is a fine thing to behold (and for Russia, absolutely appalling: think what could be done with this-plus-airpower …)  A combined-arms assault, with depth, under cleverly assembled air-defence and electronic warfare cover, proving that such things are possible even from a sorely-stretched nation on the modern “transparent” battlefield.
2. The above point on Putin and his jealously protected airforce has been reinforced in spades.  The obvious immediate counter to a fast-moving assault deep(ish) into undefended open country is tactical aviation.  As for the past 30 months, it’s conspicuous by its absence (not 100% absent, but not remotely committed to the task).
3. Very smart of Kyiv not to base this offensive around the newly-arriving F-16s.  As regards aviation, things can only get worse for Putin: his airfields, aircraft and ammunition being steadily depredated, with the F-16s still to arrive on the battlefield.
4. Just as the Donbass “tunnel-boring” represents its monstrous strengths, deep Russian weaknesses – in very many dimensions, military-technical and political – have been brutally been exposed over the last few days.  The embarrassments are set to continue for many days to come. 

I could bang on about these weaknesses for pages but will settle for now on four comments:

• Putin really, really hates what’s happening.  He’s swallowed a load of humiliation over the decades, but this is being dished out by Kyiv.  (I confidently await BTL comments that assert it’s actually the US 9th Ranger division in Kursk.)  But as regards his response, of course that could go either way.
• Not only is he determined to husband his airforce, we see he’s utterly determined to stay with the daft-but-significant rhetoric of “Special Military Operation” / “just a terrorist provocation” etc etc.  This is very telling.
• Even a fortnight of incursion has tremendous long-term consequences for Russia.
• To repeat: think what could be done with this-plus-airpower …