Update on Kursk, Ukraine, and Peace Prospects

Time for Giving Truth and Peace Precedence over Vanity

On August 6, 2024, several elite brigades (allegedly 13,000 men) of the Ukrainian Army drove across the Russian border into the Kursk Oblast of Russia and captured about 390 square miles of heavily forested and largely rural territory, including the town of Sudzha, population just over 5,100, and 27 smaller villages. Sudzha is the administrative headquarters for the Sudzhansky district of the Kursk Oblast.

The Russians initially responded mainly with reserves and were slow to act, but within weeks there were reports that the initial Ukrainian forces had suffered 80 percent casualties. Moreover, the Ukrainians kept pouring mechanized infantry, armored vehicles, trucks, mobile weapon systems into the developing battle as the Russians slowly increased resistance.

The Ukrainians frequently fall for the same Russian artillery “cauldron” tactic. The Russians retreat and prepare an artillery, mine, and armor trap, also using many drones. They let the Ukrainians follow their retreat into a three-sided artillery “cauldron” and then devastate them from three sides with massive artillery barrages—the Russians have artillery and munitions advantages of between six and ten to one over the Ukrainians. The Ukrainians typically respond with pouring more troops and equipment into the cauldron, seeking a victory, but receiving unsustainable casualties. The two most celebrated Ukrainian victories of the war, the Kharkiv Blitz in September 2022 and the Russian evacuation of Kherson in November 2022, resulted in disproportionately higher Ukrainian than Russian casualties. The Kharkiv Blitz was a major territory gain but was in effect a good example of Russian use of the Cauldron artillery tactic while executing an orderly strategic retreat. All this is very similar to what developed in Kursk. After an initial stunning success, the Ukrainian Army kept pouring its best troops and equipment into what became a disastrous Kursk cauldron.

The Kursk Oblast itself has a total population of over 1.1 million and occupies 11,582 square miles. The Kursk region is famous for its extraordinarily fertile black soil and 77 percent of its land is in agricultural use. However, 68 percent of its population is urban. The Kursk Oblast is one of Russia’s major iron ore producers and is also rich in rare earths and important industrial metals.

The City of Kursk, population about 440,000, is the administrative center for the Kursk Oblast. About 40 percent of the workforce is engaged in manufacturing. The Kursk Oblast Magnetic Anomaly has the largest  high-quality iron ore reserves in the world. Engineering, metal-working, and chemical and agricultural processing as well as mining and mining equipment manufacturers are major employers.

The Kursk Nuclear Power Plant is one of the three biggest nuclear power plants in Russia and one of the four biggest electricity producers in the country.

During the summer of 1943, the city of Kursk was the scene of one of the two most decisive battles in World War II, the other being Stalingrad (July 1942 to February 1943). It was also the largest battle in the history of warfare and the largest tank battle in history and had the greatest number of aircraft losses in history. At least 232,000 Russian and German soldiers were killed. The Russian victory broke the last desperate effort of the German Army to stop the ultimate Russian advance to Berlin.

About 96 percent of Kursk Oblast’s population is Russian. A 2012 survey indicated over 70 percent of the population identify as Christians, and the overwhelming majority, nearly 69 percent of the total survey belonged to the Russian Orthodox Church.  

US intelligence apparently informed the Ukrainian General Staff that the heavily forested area of Kursk Oblast near the Ukrainian border was not strongly defended. Initial defense against the Ukrainian incursion was largely by Russian reserve units.

Besides thinly spread Russian defenses along the Kursk border to Ukraine, Ukrainian forces might have been aiming at capturing the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant. The Ukrainians also probably calculated that the attack would draw Russian forces away from critical Ukrainian defensive fortresses in western Donetsk Oblast under heavy Russian attack. None of that happened. The Ukrainians got nowhere near the Kursk Nuclear Plant, and the Russians never let up on their step by step destruction of key Ukrainian defensive fortification, transportation, and communication centers in western Donetsk. Destroying or capturing these fortified towns, such as Petrovosk (population 13,000) and Chasiv Yar (population 12,000) would clear the way to the Dnieper River and Kyiv itself.

Modern Russian military strategy avoids high-casualty direct assaults on towns and especially large cites. They may start with a cauldron strategy encircling three sides and dominating access roads by nearby artillery until potential Ukrainian reinforcements are exhausted before completing an encirclement.

What the Ukrainians did accomplish in Kursk was embarrassing the Russians on the international political front and its home front. It is important to realize, however, the difference between Russian military strategy and Ukrainian strategy. The Russian strategy does not place priority on capturing or even holding land. The Russian strategy  is a strategy of ATTRITION, and the priority is to destroy the Ukrainian Army, its equipment, and material resources to the degree that there can be only limited resistance to Russian arms and a final phase of Russian advance. Indeed, because of overwhelming Russian superiority in artillery, air, and missile attack, and air defense and electronic countermeasures, and massive industrial production capabilities, the Russians are clearly winning, and only an insane resort to nuclear weapons could change that by destroying everybody.

The Ukrainian strategy in reality has been reduced from a maneuver strategy to a propaganda strategy in order to keep the arms and cash coming in from US, NATO, and EU taxpayers and go on fighting to the last Ukrainian and whoever else is foolish and depraved enough to send its soldiers into a hopeless meatgrinder based on counterfactual vanities and absurdities.  

Moreover, the NATO, CIA, and British MI6 Cold War gospel that Putin is Hitler and wants to plant the Russian flag in Warsaw, Paris, and London is self-generated, self-promoting, and bereft of actual facts and clear reasoning. The Russians are neither capable of invading Western Europe nor inclined to wasting human and economic resources to do so.  

Even some Western reports are now saying that the Ukrainian intrusion into Kursk has now ended. This is at least close. President Trump has asked President Putin to spare the lives of two thousand Ukrainian troops now encircled by Russian troops in or near Sudzha. Putin has indicated that they will be treated by standards equivalent to Geneva Convention, if they surrender, or as terrorists, if they do not surrender. There are reports that they have surrendered but many are trying to flee to Ukraine through forested areas in groups of two to seven.

The Russians have now entered Ukraine’s Sumy Oblast west of the Russian Kursk and Belgorod oblasts. The Ukrainians frequently intrude into Belgorod to distract Russian forces. Some independent intelligence analysts believe Russia is massing an army of 175,000 for a potential strike at Kyiv from Suny Oblast, with a supporting force cutting off Russian-speaking Kharkiv at the same time.

By the way, Russian troops were not driven away from Kyiv in March 2022. They were withdrawn as a gesture supporting the Istanbul peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia, which was vetoed by American and British pressure on Ukrainian President Zelensky, delivered in person on April 9 by British PM Boris Johnson. The opportunity to weaken Russia by over-extending its military forces and massive economic sanctions, possibly collapsing the Russian economy, and resulting in successful CIA and MI6 demonization and regime-change for Putin seemed more attractive. But now more than a million Ukrainian soldiers are dead or permanently disabled, the Ukrainian economy is in ruins, and a hopeful future for generations of Ukrainians is in doubt.    

One story regarding the final collapse of Ukrainian forces in Kursk, is that on March 9 up  to 800 Russian mining and engineering specialists and Russian Special Forces (GRU) troops made their way through over 9 miles of underground Russian gas pipeline only about four-feet-seven-inches in diameter to surprise the Ukrainians. According to a Russian insider and you-tuber, “HistoryLegends,” Russian engineering and mining specialists worked for three weeks to build out toilets and medical, food, and water storage and emergency oxygen reserve areas. The pipeline had been closed in early January but needed be cleared of remaining gas pockets. Some mining specialists were affected while removing gas pockets but recovered. The Operation Pipeline surprise was a key factor in routing Ukrainian troops. Ukrainian propaganda claims a different result. My caution is that you can usually believe Ukrainian or Russian soldiers, but anything released by the Ukrainian General Staff or intelligence to U.S. and British media is likely to be a wild distortion of the truth. Ukraine has frequently used outrageous propaganda in appealing for U.S. funds and weapons. Russian Special Forces (Spetsnaz) are familiar to readers of Ian Flemming novels about James Bond.

According to U.S. Army LtCol (ret) Daniel Davis, Ukrainian casualties in Kursk since August 2024 exceed 60,000, a high percentage of them dead. Davis broadcasts his interviews with knowledgeable military, foreign policy, and intelligence experts on Ukraine and Israel several times a day on YouTube. He is highly regarded by many former intelligence officers, including recently appointed Trump DNI,Tulsi Gabbard.

Including Crimea and the Sevastopol Navy Base, there are nine predominantly Russian ethnic oblasts within the 2013 borders of Ukraine. The Russians clearly hold the military face cards and a few aces, and will certainly insist on keeping the five that have already become part of Russia and are 90 percent occupied by the Russian Army. There is minimal chance the Russians will agree to a complete cease-fire unless a negotiated peace plan has been agreed upon first. If negotiations do not work, the Russians will be inclined to take the other four Russian-speaking oblasts including Kharkiv and Odessa. Russian ethnics have been badly treated and subjected to anti-Russian ethnic and cultural cleansing legislation by Ukrainian governments since the US and UK-backed  2014 Maidan Revolution and coup that installed a pro-Western, anti-Russian government.

It is possible that the Russians would progress to establish the Dnieper River as the border between Russia and Ukraine. This might even include Kyiv or the eastern part of Kyiv. Contrary to preposterous and illogical Ukrainian propaganda that Ukrainian losses have been much lower than Russian losses, realistic surveys indicate Ukrainian losses are shocking multiples of Russian losses. Ukraine has already lost more than one million soldiers dead or permanently disabled. Continuing the war will destroy Ukraine and its posterity.  A favorite delusion is that we can bully the Russians into a cease-fire. We don’t have the cards, and this is a dangerously ignorant assessment of the Russians. Truth and peace, with their fruit of posterity and prosperity, must have precedence over political vanity.