Kursk, Donbass Resources, F-16 Losses, Overview
Kursk is a city of 440,000 in the Kursk Oblast (state) of southwestern Russia, bordering northeastern Ukraine. The city of Kursk sits mostly on the eastern side of the Don River. The population of Kursk Oblast is only about 1.1 million. Before World War II it was almost 3.0 million. However, it is the site of one of the richest iron ore deposits in the world and is also wealthy in rare minerals. It was once heavily forested, but now has some of the richest farmland in the world. About 96 percent of the population is Russian and about 69 percent of the population belong to the Russian Orthodox Church. The Kursk Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) is one of the three largest in Russia, which is situated about 24 miles west of the city. Kursk is about 316 miles or 7 hours south of Moscow.
During World War II, for 48 days from July 5 to August 23, 1943, Kursk was the site of the biggest battle in the history of the world and also the biggest tank battle in history. It was a major victory for the Soviet Union over Nazi Germany. Many regard it as the decisive turning point against the Germans in World War II. At its peak during the Russian counter-offensive against the Germans, 2.5 million Soviet troops fought against 940,000 German troops. Over 10,000 tanks, 5,000 aircraft, and 57,000 artillery pieces were involved. Casualty estimates vary widely, but German casualties were over 200,000, and Russian casualties were nearly 800,000. In both cases about half were dead or missing. Although, the Germans inflicted very high casualties on the Russians, Russian manpower and numbers of tanks, artillery pieces, and aircraft were just too strong to overcome, and the Germans could not replace their losses, while the Russians continued to gain strength. Moreover, the Russian victory at Kursk followed by only four months a huge Russian victory over the Germans at Stalingrad. About 80 percent of German casualties during World War II were on the Russian front. Hitler was warned by several of his generals that the Russians had decisive military superiority at Kursk, but Hitler over-ruled them. One Russian scholar has written that both Stalin and Hitler were bad generals, but Stalin learned from his mistakes, and Hitler did not.
The recent Ukrainian incursion into the Russian Kursk Oblast on August 5 was apparently not expected by the Russians. The Russians probably assumed that since the Ukrainians were being pushed out of Donetsk and Zaporizhia oblasts along the whole SE front, that they could not spare their best brigades to open a new front in the northeast by penetrating into Kursk Oblast. Their probable territorial objective was to capture or badly damage the Kursk NPP. Their propaganda objective was probably a higher priority—to embarrass Putin and gain more U.S. and NATO financial and military support. However, they were not able to get near enough to Kursk or the Kursk NPP to be a serious threat.
The Ukrainians may have assumed that their intrusion would relieve pressure on the Ukrainian forces retreating in Donetsk and Zaporizhia, but Russian reserves and Air Force and Missile Forces easily blocked the Ukrainian penetration without weakening their advances further south. Moreover, Putin’s popularity has not been affected. Reports from inside Russia indicate the Russian people are now furious with Ukraine and the U.S. and want Putin to order the Russian Army to finish off the Ukrainian Army and march all the way to the Polish border. Although NATO propaganda constantly repeats that Putin wants all of Ukraine and would love to march into Poland, the Baltics, and Western Europe, that has never been Putin’s desire. His initial desire was only to secure peace, safety, and equal rights for the large Russian-speaking majority in eastern and southern Ukraine.
Since the U.S. backed coup in 2014, the Ukrainian government has implemented a program of discrimination and ethnic and cultural cleansing against the nearly 40 percent of Ukraine’s population who are Russian-speaking ethnics or cultural Russians. At this point, Putin, may decide that he may have to go all the way to the Dnieper River or at least annex all the Russian-speaking oblasts in eastern and southern Ukraine to achieve justice for his fellow Russian ethnics in Ukraine. Intervening to stop Ukrainian oppression of ethnic Russians was not just a Putin idea. The Russian people in the Russian Federation were very concerned about how their Russian relatives in Ukraine were being treated and had begun to insist something be done.
While the Kursk intrusion has been a propaganda success in most of the U.S. media, it is turning into a military disaster. Probably three of the most experienced and politically reliable reinforced Ukrainian brigades are involved, about 12,000 men, but there are also as many as two thousand Polish, American, British, and French mercenary volunteers. Close to 7,000, half the total, are already casualties. The Russian Air Force has already knocked out their major fuel reserves, and most of their mechanized artillery, tanks, trucks, and armored vehicles have run out of fuel and have been systematically destroyed. Thus about 7,000 of Ukraine’s best soldiers are trapped, without mechanized support, taking heavy casualties, scattered, and running out of everything. I am pretty sure U.S. intelligence sources pointed them to a weakly defended entry point. But can they hold out for propaganda purposes past November 5?
In June, U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham pointed out why the U.S. and its NATO subsidiaries must fight to the last Ukrainian to keep the Donbass oblasts (Donetsk and Lugansk), Crimea, and six other Russian-speaking oblasts under Ukrainian and U.S. and NATO control. They are a “gold mine” of extensive reserves of “critical materials..” Indeed, they have more than half of all the mineral, industrial, and agricultural wealth within the 1991 borders Ukraine.
Former Russian President and Deputy Chairman of the Russian Federation Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, pointed out that the two Donbass oblasts, Donetsk and Lugansk, alone, have $7.3 Trillion of $14.8 Trillion of 1991 Ukraine’s estimated mineral resource base. The Donbass is rich in coal, metals, rare-earth elements, and other valuable materials, including lithium. Three other Russian speaking oblasts—Crimea, Kherson, and Zaporizhia--add another $821 billion, which together with the two Donbass oblasts brings the Russian-speaking southeast to over $8.1 Trillion or 55 percent of the mineral wealth within 1991 Ukraine borders.
Medvedev remarked,
“In order to gain the coveted access to minerals, Western parasites, without a twinge of conscience, demand from their proteges a war to the last Ukrainian.”
The anti-Russian ethnic cleansing programs of the post-2014 Ukrainian governments may be the ultimate destruction of Ukraine. Without Donbass, Ukraine’s extremely high debt will be an insurmountable burden The means to repay it are too limited, unless the United States continues to print money for Project Ukraine.
In August 2023, The Biden Administration promised to train Ukrainian pilots to fly the multi-purpose jet fighter F-16 “Fighting Falcon.” Training began in October 2023. The F-16 was first built in 1974 and introduced to the USAF and NATO in 1978. The original aircraft frame and model is thus close to a half-century old. There have been numerous updates, and it is still in production and still a formidable weapon, but the U.S. and NATO have begun to replace it with the F-35. NATO has at least 85 surplus F-16s, and at least 18 have been promised to Ukraine. Ukraine presently has six, which came from the Danish Air Force, which is replacing them with F-35s.
The first combat mission for Ukrainian F-16s was Monday, August 26, flying against a massive Russian missile strike of 127 missiles and many drones targeting Ukrainian electrical infrastructure all over the country. The Ukrainian General Staff—which has a reputation for wild propaganda and exaggeration—claimed that many missiles and drones were shot down. Ukrainian General Staff “information” and propaganda is dutifully repeated by most U.S. media. However, the Russians usually program more than one missile or drone for each target. According to the Russian Defense ministry, all targets were hit.
However, on this first mission, at least one Ukrainian F-16 was lost. It was piloted by Lt. Col. Oleksii (or Alexei) Mes, (call sign Moonfish), reputedly their best trained F-16 pilot. He was killed in the air or in the crash. The loss occurred at night in the Lviv region of western Ukraine, when Mes’s aircraft disappeared from the radar screen. The crash site was found nearby. Four days later, President Zelensky fired Ukrainian Air Force commander. Lt. Gen. Anatolii Kryvonozhko.
A report that two Ukrainian F-16s were destroyed on the ground circulated briefly, but it cannot now be found. Only this possible reference can be found on Bing.com and perhaps some others: “News about Ukrainian F-16s Destroyed On Ground” The articles under it refer only to the one F-16 that was shot down, Many combat reports prove the “fog of war” phenomenon, but I hold this one as plausible pending further investigation.
The Ukrainians first attributed the loss to pilot error. More recently, the story is that the F-16 was mistakenly shot down by friendly Ukrainian fire using a Patriot anti-aircraft missile. Perhaps there was a failure of the transponder identity system. The Russians are not claiming or saying anything. However, Russian Air Force pilots have been promised a bounty for F-16 shoot-downs. Moreover the Russian Su-35 fighter, among the aircraft being used in Ukraine, carries an R-37M Mach 6 hypersonic air-to-air missile with a 240-mile range. Furthermore, the Russians probably had intelligence where F-16s were based and whether they might be part of Ukrainian air defenses that night. The Russian Air Force has approximately 151 Su-35s, which were first introduced in 2014. Also introduced in 2014 and used in Ukraine is the Su-34, which is primarily an attack-bomber, but carries at least the R-73 air-to-air missile with a 25-mile range. The Su-34s are also loaded with electronic-countermeasure equipment. There are currently 161 available for combat use. There are also 20 multi-purpose stealth Su-57s introduced in 2020, but I doubt the Russians will expose it to U. S. intelligence collection in Ukraine.
According to Forbes, the Ukrainian Air Force has lost 90 of about 135 original combat aircraft, which may be optimistic. These are or were mostly older Sukhoi (Su) or MiG aircraft. Within the Ukrainian theater of operations, the Russians presently have unquestioned air superiority in surface to air defense, and a clear margin of air superiority in air to surface attack. It is doubtful how much difference the F-16s can make, but because of their high political profile, I expect they will now be used cautiously during the last two months of the American election season.
The Kursk intrusion into Russian territory is in football terms a political and propaganda “Hail Mary” that is turning into a disaster. Southeastern Ukraine is a gold mine, but it is not our gold mine. The people who live there are Russians, who have been oppressed by Ukrainian governments following a violent revolutionary coup in 2014 backed by the U.S. State Department, CIA, and British MI6. Dishonorable pursuit of gold, power, and Empire reaps the whirlwind. The F-16 is not going to save Ukraine. The current Ukrainian government is thoroughly corrupt and very far from democratic. “Project Ukraine” is not helping Ukraine; it is destroying Ukraine. Desperate Ukrainian strikes far into Russian territory are only making things worse and bringing us to the brink of World War III. Western media has largely suppressed the truth about the causes, costs, dangers, and ongoing tragedy of the Ukraine War.
“My people are destroyed by a lack of Knowledge…”—Hosea 4:6a
Mike Scruggs is the author of two books: The Un-Civil War: Shattering the Historical Myths; and Lessons from the Vietnam War: Truths the Media Never Told You, and over 600 articles on military history, national security, intelligent design, genealogical genetics, immigration, current political affairs, Islam, and the Middle East. 
