On Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged for the first time Ukraine’s US-backed ground incursion into Russia’s Kursk Oblast, which began on August 6.
Zelensky said in his nightly address that the Ukrainian military was working “to push the war out into the aggressor’s territory.” He added that Ukraine was “proving that it really knows how to restore justice and guarantees exactly the kind of pressure that is needed – pressure on the aggressor.”
Fighting has been raging in Kursk since Ukraine launched its invasion, and the Russian Defense Ministry said on Sunday that its forces prevented a “breakthrough deep into Russian territory.”
The Russian Defense Ministry claimed that since August 6, Ukrainian forces have lost 1,350 soldiers in Kursk, but the number isn’t confirmed, and neither side has released information about its own casualties throughout the war.
The ministry also claimed that its forces destroyed “29 tanks, 23 armored personnel carriers, nine infantry fighting vehicles, 116 armored combat vehicles, 20 cars, three self-propelled launchers of the Buk M1 anti-aircraft missile system, three launchers and an AN/MPQ-65 radar station of the Patriot anti-aircraft missile system, a launcher of the Grad multiple launch rocket system and 10 field artillery guns.”
Local officials said 15 civilians were wounded when debris from a Ukrainian missile hit by Russian air defenses fell on a residential building. “Due to the fall of missile debris on an apartment building in the regional center, 15 people were injured, all of whom are receiving necessary medical care,” Acting Kursk Governor Alexei Smirnov wrote on Telegram.
The US is supporting Ukraine’s attack on Kursk and has said Ukrainian forces are allowed to use US-provided weapons in the ground incursion into Russia. For the first two years of the war, the US prohibited Ukraine from striking Russian territory with US-provided missiles but recently lifted that restriction in the wake of Russia’s offensive in Kharkiv.
Russia’s Defense Ministry has reported that its forces have destroyed US-made Bradley fighting vehicles and US-made Stryker armored vehicles. The sanctioned use of US-provided weapons in a Ukrainian ground incursion into Russia marks a significant escalation of the proxy war and risks a major response from Moscow.
The Pentagon has said the US still does not want Ukraine to launch “long-range strikes” with US-provided weapons but has not defined how far into Russian territory would be too far. Zelensky is asking the US to lift all restrictions on Ukraine’s use of US weapons.
“This is what we will continue to talk about with our partners – just as air defense protects lives, lifting restrictions on long-range strikes will save thousands of human lives,” Zelensky said in his nightly address on Sunday.
I believe the US has redefined the phrase Russian Roulette?…
Yup. Another bullet in the chamber.
Unfortunately, the USA is playing with an automatic pistol.
Why can't the Russkiys spell? There words are so confusing. I mean really, Oblast sounds like a bomb going off. A bad omen (shoulder shrug)…
Red flag #6 appears to be smoking gun proof the US and Israel (both Zionist and both Globalist) were the primary culprits behind the 9/11 attacks:
https://izraulhidashi.medium.com/dear-pro-vaxxers-you-might-be-taking-the-wrong-vaccine-3e92fd0e5fd8
This incursion demonstrates again that good intelligence is a major weapon for offense and defense. Plus acting on intelligence which Israel failed to do in the Gaza case and Putin in this case.
Is Kursk the objective of this incursion? The battle of the bulge of WW2 demonstrated that bulges can be dangerous for the 'bulger'.
The incursion has already lasted longer than I thought it would.
That could mean I was wrong in thinking that it was just quick PR move to impress upon ordinary Russians that Putin, unlike Stalin, hasn’t been able to keep the promise that “the next war will not be fought on Russian soil.”
Or it could be that the incursion was more successful than the Ukrainians thought it would be, so they’re following through … and that it may possibly have been more successful than they thought it would be because Putin wants as many Ukrainian troops as possible in place before he drops a big hammer on them.
Who knows? The old saying that “the first casualty of war is the truth” seems to get more and more applicable over time. In this particular war it seems like both sides spend as much time pulling stupid party tricks that have no military utility and are done just for public consumption, like the Ukrainian “offensive” last year, or the fake “referendums” in the occupied oblasts.
“This is what we will continue to talk about with our partners – just as air defense protects lives, lifting restrictions on long-range strikes will save thousands of human lives,” Zelensky said in his nightly address on Sunday.
Now there is some truly ass backwards thinking. Escalation is an excellent way of saving thousands of lives./s
Is P4L Zelenskiyy cribbing WW2 justification for the atomic bomb strikes ON AND JUST AFTER the anniversaries of them ?
And whose lives is he claiming to want to save ? Can't be Ukrainian ones; he's shovelled enough of those into frontline graves.
Ukraine once again demonstrated that Russia lost this asymmetric war long ago. The fact that the Russians have been unable to defeat the Ukrainian invasion after a week demonstrates that the Ukrainians still have the capacity to resist. As long as the Ukrainians maintain their will and capacity to resist, it does not matter who wins the battles in the field. In 1968 the US thoroughly defeated the Viet Cong tactically in the Tet offensive. But by demonstrating its capacity to resist after three years of fighting the US, the VC decisively defeated the US strategically.
Putin's fundamental mistake was failing to understand how the 750 year history of Russia's domination of Ukraine created a resistance mentality that can't be defeated militarily. Russia had legitimate grievances about its security. But Putin's invasion was a terrible mistake.
I don't know that President Putin had much choice, Shmi. Netanyahu saw 400-500 ethnic Israelis killed by Hamas on Oct 7th (the rest killed by IDF mishaps) and invaded. And that was one day of killing.
The Russian Federation watches months, years of Ukraine killing ethnic Russians in the Donbasi'i region, Kiev violating Minsk II. Even the USA would have invoked R2P before the Russians did.
And I think your vaunted "Ukrainian resistance" comes with guns pointed at Ukrainian backs, not faces. The regime in Kiev, with its conscription squads and border guards keeping Ukrainian men IN and forced to fight, is hardly Vietcongese in its tenacity.
I wager much of Western Ukraine would be just find with 'those weirdoes in our East' effing off from their nation. The voting returns (back when Ukraine was a democracy) for a decade showed a CLEAR divide between Ukrainian east and west.
You've got to take a critical look at the Kremlin propaganda and do a little math. From 2014 to 2022 14,000 people were killed in the civil war in the Donbas. That included about 11,000 fighters and security personnel on both sides and 3,000 civilians. Over 2,500 civilians were killed in the first two years of the civil war (2014-2015). In the last three years before the invasion (2019-2021) and average of 25 civilians were killed annually in the Donbas. According to Prigozhin Russia lost 20,000 soldiers in the battle for Bakhmut alone. The Russian casualties in the war are likely over 100,000.
Russia, Ukraine and the Donbas would all be better off it Putin had not invaded. His invasion turned a security threat into a forever war that Russia can't win. The Ukrainians are pissed off about 750 years of being bullied by Russia and they won't quit until the Russians leave them alone.
You entertain the fallacy that Ukraine is a unified country with a unified people. This shows that you know little about Ukrainian reality.
There are ethnic minorities in all East European countries. World War II was fought in part because the Nazis believed that the oppression of ethnic Germans in other countries and Germany's interest in preventing an encircling military alliance justified military intervention. After over 70 million people died in the worst war in human history the nations of the world reiterated the principle that ethnic conflicts in foreign countries are internal matters that do not justify military intervention. Putin's pan-Russian policy is a throwback to the pan-Germanism of the Third Reich.
Finally, you assume that a Ukrainian's ethnic background determines whether or not they support secession. That shows how little you know of the history of Ukraine or the reality of 21st century Ukraine where many ethnic Russians identify with Ukraine and are fighting against the Russian invasion or resisting as civilians. Are you aware of any ethnic Ukrainians fighting in support of Russia? I haven't hear of any.
If Putin was really trying to "de-Nazify" Ukraine I am sure there are some ethnic Ukrainians who would support the Russians.
But even assuming ethnic Russians were facing discrimination in Donbas, there is no doubt that they were better off before Putin invaded. Putin's war is a disaster for Russia and the Russians and Ukrainians that live in Ukraine. It can only end when a Russian leadership finds the courage and wisdom to end Putin's folly.
My wife is Ukrainian. Her father was Ukrainian, born in west Ukraine in 1929. Her mother was Ukrainian, born in Kiev 1933. Her father hunted Banderist terrorists (UPA fighters sponsored by the West) in the 1950s because they murdered Ukrainians. Her family is Russophone. My wife detests the current Ukrainian regime and its Banderist concept of intolerant mono-ethnic Ukrainian identity. That identity is West Ukrainian. It is not inclusive and it is deeply authoritarian.
I have been to Ukraine many times with my wife to visit her family and friends.
Ukraine is a conglomerate entity, not some mostly-largely-if-you-squint-hard enough-homogenous mass. The Maidan was NOT supported by at least half of Ukraine's population. The civil war in the Donbass and the current war flow from this reality.
You don't know what you are talking about.
You father-in law's experience as a Nazi hunter actually belies your point. Despite their differences, millions of Ukrainians, east and west, like your father-in-law, are united in their loathing of the Nazis. 2.5 million Ukrainian Red Army soldiers and 6 million Ukrainian civilians were killed by the Nazis – almost 20%a of Ukraine's 1940 population. Ukrainians will never forget that. If Putin was really trying to de-Nazify Ukraine, most Ukrainians would support it. But that is a Kremlin lie. Nazis supported Maidan and the US tried to manipulate Maidan, But the desire of Ukrainians for independence from Russia is deep. By 2019 the ultra right nationalist party received less than 2% of the popular vote in the presidential election. Ironically, Putin's invasion has predictably increased support for the far right in Ukraine. But the Nazis still remain a small minority.
Ukraine has to settle its ethnic problems. The Russian invasion is not part of the solution. Given the history of Russian imperialism in Ukraine, the Russian invasion has only driven Ukraine closer to NATO and undermined those Ukrainians who until 2014 worked for closer relations with Russia. Putin is digging Russia's grave in Ukraine. Eventually the Russian people and the other oligarchs will figure this out.
He wasn’t hunting Nazis (i.e., Wehrmacht or SS soldiers) in the 1950s. He was hunting UPA nationalist Banderist terrorists. These were the same people and organization that was responsible for the Volyhn massacres of Poles and Jews, principally, in that region of western Ukraine. As to Ukrainians not forgetting the losses inflicted by the German invaders – true for those who experienced it and those who remember that history – but there are too many who carry on the Bandera view that the Russian is the principal enemy and the Nazi was an ally. The Azov unit(s) and its ilk were/are filled with this sort. They have influence in the Maidan regime order. Zelensky was elected on a peace program (was he sincere?) but reversed himself when told by the ultranationalist factions that any change toward peace would be his death. Guess what? Zelensky dropped any effort to resolve the issue of peace with the Donbass and Russia, From that you can conclude that most Ukrainians (about 70% or so voted for Zelensky and his peace program) aren’t interested in the aggressive nationalist agenda and prefer peace. 800,000 Ukrainian men hiding from Zelensky’s army, another 450,000 Ukrainian men abroad and happy to stay there while the war burns on, plus 7 million other Ukrainian refugees suggest a Ukraine population that isn’t totally committed to a “peoples war” to preserve today’s Ukraine. There was a chance for peace in April 2022. Zelensky threw it away. Zelensky and his supporter are digging Ukraine’s grave.
Additionally, the VC, NVA, Al Qaedenese, Talibanesh, and Daeshi'i did NOT get vast storehouses of military hardware stuffed in their pockets by the world's largest and wealthiest military alliance, as Ukraine has.
If not for Western meddling and interference before and during this war, this war would not have happened; or would be ended already.
The US has given about $50 billion to Ukraine. The US paid $166B to lose the VN war. That is equivalent to over a trillion dollars in 2024. If money motivated men to fight, then Vietnam would be a US dependency today. It is hearts and minds, not force of arms or dollars and cents that determines whether a national resistance movement will succeed in an asymmetric war against a stronger power.
Afghanistan is an even better example. Al-Qaeda and the Taliban were not supported by any foreign government. The US quickly defeated al-
Quaeda because they were not indigenous and the people hated them. On the other hand, the US could not defeat the Taliban because they had popular support.
The Ukrainians are still fighting and they will continue to fight even if their army is defeated.
"…a “breakthrough deep into Russian territory"."
If that was or is a Ukrainian strategy, they're dumber than they seem. Greater military minds than all of Kiev's commanders COMBINED, found out that the further into Russia you invade, the further OUT you need to retreat.