Comments by "Guinness" (@GuinessOriginal) on "Ukraine's Invasion of Russia, What's the Objective?" video.
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@wolfswinkel8906 True. The likely reason for Zelensky’s desperate urgency in Kursk is that his command likely understands the dire nature of what’s soon to come, as the entire front on this region stands to collapse after Pokrovsk falls. Zelensky needed a way to divert Russia’s attention somewhere else, but so far no slow down has been recorded for Russia’s advances in this area.
Today alone, there have again been several major advances. Another huge swath of territory around Zhelanne has been taken, moving closer to Pokrovsk. I t was only a day or two ago that Zhelanne itself was even entered. And just to the north of that, Grodovka/Hrodivka has been entered for the first time and is now being slowly taken. Further to the north New York is reportedly being chewed through, and this all comes from reports from Ukrainian channels.
The front opened up in Kursk is, in truth, fairly irrelevant compared to the facts above. Why? Because despite whatever minor temporary successes Ukraine metes out, there’s very little chance it will actually go anywhere. The Kursk bulge is just Kiev’s ‘Battle of the Bulge’ or more aptly, akin to the Khrynki diversion, which means after stalling it will likely fall to the background as something Russian conscripts will grind out for a few weeks or months while the real strategic checkmates go down in Donbass.
The only semi-interesting news confirms to us how utterly desperate Zelensky is to expand his flaccid bulge. After being stopped much farther south than anticipated, there are now reports that Zelensky is attempting daring air-assault helicopter landings behind Russia’s rear to desperately capture something near Lgov. Russian commander Apti Alaudinov confirmed earlier that based on POW confessions, the Ukrainian forces were meant to capture Kurchatov by August 11th in their operation. If that’s true, it can be seen that they’re way behind schedule and thus must now resort to desperate measures.
These are all utterly pointless territories to hold as they don’t lead to any compounding objectives whatsoever. There’s nothing strategic or even operationally significant about holding random, abandoned tiny settlements directly on the border. All it shows is that they were rebuffed from the actual area they wanted to go—which is north of Sudzha—and are now merely ‘poking about’, desperately looking for any small crevices to push themselves through in strategically unfavorable directions.
There’s also reports on Ukrainian channels that the two main brigades of the 80th and 82nd are being pulled due to their losses, and withdrawn to the Sumy region, having suffered huge losses in equipment and personnel. Marches of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the direction of Kurchatov did not pass without a trace - the forests are littered with burnt-out and damaged armored vehicles. The crews and amphibious units of the mobile groups were destroyed or scattered through the forests.
Anyone who hasn’t seen the nearly unprecedented losses they’ve been suffering in Kharkov just work your way over to this channel and check the last few dozen videos, which are too graphic to post here. And there’s much more, with a whole photo collection posted today on Telegram showing dozens of KIA Ukrainian troops in gruesome fashion in Kursk.
One analyst’s concluding thoughts:
“Everyone who posts about "Ukrainians taking territory in Kursk oblast" or "Russians retaking territory in Kursk oblast" is either really stupid or lying to you for clicks. That is not the kind of fighting that is occurring there. It's mostly small teams trying to spot each other and then hunting each other with drones and artillery, or trying to ambush each other. There is no frontline, and most of the map painting for either side is based on a 5 man team driving through an empty villages and snapping a pic while pursuing the enemy. The truth is that we simply don't know who has fire control over what village at any given moment, and it's not the kind of positional warfare where that matters. The Ukrainians are trying to find places where they could dig in and establish supply lines; the Russians are consolidating a defensive perimeter and gathering reserves from where they won't weaken the actual strategic battlegrounds. The actually important questions are whether/when the AFU can establish supply and when the RuAF can coordinate the resources for a sweeping purge of the afflicted area. Russians driving through a village and not seeing the Ukrainian DRG team in the woods nearby does not matter for the overall situation; neither does Ukrainians posting pics from villages they drove through four days ago. Neither of these is newsworthy or has strategic impact.”
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The likely reason for Zelensky’s desperate urgency in Kursk is that his command likely understands the dire nature of what’s soon to come, as the entire front on this region stands to collapse after Pokrovsk falls. Zelensky needed a way to divert Russia’s attention somewhere else, but so far no slow down has been recorded for Russia’s advances in this area.
Today alone, there have again been several major advances. Another huge swath of territory around Zhelanne has been taken, moving closer to Pokrovsk. I t was only a day or two ago that Zhelanne itself was even entered. And just to the north of that, Grodovka/Hrodivka has been entered for the first time and is now being slowly taken. Further to the north New York is reportedly being chewed through, and this all comes from reports from Ukrainian channels.
The intresting things happening in Kursk are, in truth, fairly irrelevant compared to the above. Why? Because despite whatever minor temporary successes Ukraine metes out, there’s very little chance it will actually go anywhere. No, the Kursk bulge is just Kiev’s ‘Battle of the Bulge’ or more aptly, akin to the Khrynki diversion, which means after stalling it will likely fall to the background as something Russian conscripts will grind out for a few weeks or months while the real strategic checkmates go down in Donbass.
The only semi-interesting news confirms to us how utterly desperate Zelensky is to expand his flaccid bulge. After being stopped much farther south than anticipated, there are now reports that Zelensky is attempting daring air-assault helicopter landings behind Russia’s rear to desperately capture something near Lgov. Russian commander Apti Alaudinov confirmed earlier that based on POW confessions, the Ukrainian forces were meant to capture Kurchatov by August 11th in their operation. If that’s true, it can be seen that they’re way behind schedule and thus must now resort to desperate measures.
These are all utterly pointless territories to hold as they don’t lead to any compounding objectives whatsoever. There’s nothing strategic or even operationally significant about holding random, abandoned tiny settlements directly on the border. All it shows is that they were rebuffed from the actual area they wanted to go—which is north of Sudzha—and are now merely ‘poking about’, desperately looking for any small crevices to push themselves through in strategically unfavorable directions.
There’s also reports on Ukrainian channels that the two main brigades of the 80th and 82nd are being pulled due to their losses, and withdrawn to the Sumy region, having suffered huge losses in equipment and personnel. Marches of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the direction of Kurchatov did not pass without a trace - the forests are littered with burnt-out and damaged armored vehicles. The crews and amphibious units of the mobile groups were destroyed or scattered through the forests.
Anyone who hasn’t seen the nearly unprecedented losses they’ve been suffering in Kharkov just work your way over to this channel and check the last few dozen videos, which are too graphic to post here. And there’s much more, with a whole photo collection posted today on Telegram showing dozens of KIA Ukrainian troops in gruesome fashion in Kursk.
One analyst’s concluding thoughts:
“Everyone who posts about "Ukrainians taking territory in Kursk oblast" or "Russians retaking territory in Kursk oblast" is either really stupid or lying to you for clicks. That is not the kind of fighting that is occurring there. It's mostly small teams trying to spot each other and then hunting each other with drones and artillery, or trying to ambush each other. There is no frontline, and most of the map painting for either side is based on a 5 man team driving through an empty villages and snapping a pic while pursuing the enemy. The truth is that we simply don't know who has fire control over what village at any given moment, and it's not the kind of positional warfare where that matters. The Ukrainians are trying to find places where they could dig in and establish supply lines; the Russians are consolidating a defensive perimeter and gathering reserves from where they won't weaken the actual strategic battlegrounds. The actually important questions are whether/when the AFU can establish supply and when the RuAF can coordinate the resources for a sweeping purge of the afflicted area. Russians driving through a village and not seeing the Ukrainian DRG team in the woods nearby does not matter for the overall situation; neither does Ukrainians posting pics from villages they drove through four days ago. Neither of these is newsworthy or has strategic impact.”
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@TheRezro If Ukraine taking the war to Russia was to bring Russia to negotiate from a position of weakness, it will fail, simply because Ukrainaians don't have the manpower to sustain this push and subsequent occupation. It is a good PR victory for Ukrainian backers in the west, and it shows how catastrophically backward, incompetent, and Soviet, Russian strategic thinking still is, but the Russian advantage in numbers will remain.
What it also might do is harden Russian position, embolden the hardliners in the Russian government, and dissuade Putin from pushing for any negotiations for peace, especially after a new administration is elected in the U.S. Which, maybe, was the actual aim of the Ukrainian government, or whoever is advising them. In scuttling that particular process, Ukraine has been successful. Whether sabotaging peace negotiations is the best long term strategy for the Ukrainian, or American people, is highly debatable. The arguments for such a strategy will invariably come from those profiting massively from it - and not from those dying, suffering and paying for it, whether through taxes or lives.
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@TheRezro Ukraine’s Kursk adventure seems to have ground to a halt and transitioned into the typical positional warfare. There is little indication so far that Russia is redirecting frontline forces from eastern Ukraine. Instead of pulling those brigades, Russia appears to be redeploying lower-level units to the Kursk region, at least according to a briefing on Sunday by the Institute for the Study of War, the U.S.-based research organization.
They report roughly 20% of Kursk reinforcements are being pulled from other fronts. Politico corroborates this, as does FT reporter Christopher Miller. This was further confirmed by many other high level sources, including former US Army officer Daniel L Davis. Numerous AFU soldiers that were interviewed have said they only found out about the offensive one day before hand, and many were pulled from their Donbass brigades a few days prior. Thus, many of the reports about Ukraine building up a massive force “under Russia’s nose” on the border, are not really accurate.
The above analysts, and commentators for the WSJ and NYT, have concluded Putin's latest peace proposal, under which Russia retains the occupied territories and Ukraine is banned from joining NATO, which has been rejected by many Western leaders, is, in fact, the most realistic scenario for how this war will end.
They also grudgingly paints a rosy picture of Russia’s economic outlook. The West hasn’t managed to cut off the sources of Russia’s economic might, despite rounds of sanctions. The economy is growing healthily, and the assets of Russian oligarchs remain safe in the West, even if frozen. Most importantly, Russian oil is being bought and sold with minimal difficulty around the world as Western leaders can’t seem to decide what they want more: to meaningfully punish Russia or keep things as they are. Tellingly, the U.S. Treasury’s proposal to impose penalties on tankers that help Russian oil evade sanctions has stalled over the White House’s fear that higher gasoline prices won’t play well at the polls in November.
This is something supported just days ago by the Economist. Russian gdp is expected to rise by over 3% in real terms, faster than 95% of rich countries. In May and June economic activity “significantly increased”, according to the central bank. Other “real time” measures of activity, including one published by Goldman Sachs, suggest the economy is accelerating. Unemployment is close to an all-time low; the rouble is doing fine. With cash incomes growing by 14% year on year, the purchasing power of Russians is rising fast. In contrast with almost everyone else, Russians are feeling good about the economy.
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