Kursk: Where is the operation going?

At dawn, on 6 August, paratroopers from 3rd Battalion, 82nd Air Assault Brigade (80 ODShBr) crossed the Sumy-Kursk international border and seized the Russian border crossing point at Sudzha.  The attack came as a complete surprise.  Unlikely images of 50-odd Russian border guards and conscripts surrendering began to circulate on social media.  By the end of the day it was evident this was not a raid, but rather a full-scale incursion into Kurshchyna raion (‘district’) in Kursk Oblast. Syrsky had sprung his surprise.

The initial incursion…

The initial incursion was led by two veteran airborne formations: 80 and 82 ODShBr, Just 300-odd paratroopers, supported by 11 tanks and 20 armoured vehicles spearheaded the attack. 82 ODShBR was commanded by the newly-appointed Brigadier General Pavel Rozlach because the previous commander – Brigadier General/Colonel Emil Ishkulov – refused the mission and was sacked. 95 ODShBr was in support.  Follow-on forces included 22nd, 61st and 116th Mechanised Brigades (22, 61 and 116 OMBr).  36 Marine Brigade later reinforced the western flank (36 OBrMP). Ukrainian units crossed on a narrow frontage, creating breaches and demining. They were supported by drones, artillery, aviation and air.  ESM (jamming) was extensive.  The immediate objective was the town of Sudzha, roughly 15 kilometres from the border, with a population of 15,000.

By the evening of 13 August – one week into the operation – Ukrainian forces had taken control of an area of roughly 1,000 square kilometres, encompassing 74 settlements.  Recce groups had penetrated as far as 35 kilometres.  As many as four axes – essentially following main roads – were exploited. In a first, an SBU¹team used a first-person view (FPV) drone to down a Russian Mi-28 helicopter, the second following the shoot-down of a Ka-52 by MANPADS. On 14 August Ukrainian forces also shot down a Su-34 (the 40th fighter-bomber lost by the Russian Air Force to date this year).  In another notable incident, the special force unit TsSO A (‘Alpha Group’) of the SBU captured 102 prisoners in a bunker complex, the largest haul of the war (at the end of August Syrsky reported a total 594 prisoners had been taken).²

…and the Russian reaction

The initial Russian reaction was semi-hysteria, especially on social media. President Putin laughably described the incursion as a ‘large-scale provocation’. The following day he summoned a meeting attended by Defence Minister Andrey Belousov, Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu, Federal Security Service (FSB) Director Alexander Bortnikov, and Chief of the General Staff General Valery Gerasimov. Gerasimov pompously told the meeting that the situation was under control and that the Ukrainian incursion had been stopped, which wasn’t true.

Outside the unreal halls of the Kremlin, mayhem was breaking out. Russian nationalist milbloggers veered from the conspiratorial – the whole affair had been ‘planned by NATO generals’- to the irrationally optimistic; Syrsky’s gamble was ‘absolutely unsuccessful and useless’.  Mothers’ groups started expressing outrage that conscripts were being used to fight – a highly sensitive issue in Russia, and illegal if the conscript has not served at least four months.  Refugees derided the daily 10,000 roubles they were being promised (around $110) (rents in Kursk have doubled, one bedroom apartments are now offered at 45,000 roubles per month).  The Ministry of Emergencies set up a helpline but dozens of messages on social media testified that nobody was answering the calls. The school term starts soon and autumn is not far away.

The military reaction was chaotic, and lethal.  The worst blue-on-blue incident involved an attack helicopter engaging a convoy of 13 trucks on the E38 highway, near the town of Oktyabr’skoe, roughly 30 kilometres from the border with Ukraine. The incident happened at night. The following morning Russian drivers filmed the aftermath; there were many uncollected bodies.  Elsewhere, disorganised Russian sub-units fought their own battles or fled.

By 12 August it was clear Putin’s pretence that everything was under control could not be sustained.  The tsar had to be seen to be in charge and chastising poorly performing subordinates. A meeting was convened with the governors of Kursk, Bryansk and Belgorod Oblasts, attended by other military, security, and government officials. Kursk Oblast Acting Governor Alexei Smirnov was put in his place (which had the tonic effect of turning the two other governors into timid mice). But before he was silenced he usefully reported that Colonel General Yevgeny Nikiforov, Chief of Staff of the Army, had arrived in Kursk Oblast and was now ‘coordinating with all security forces’. He also reported 121,000 civilians had fled the area. Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov reported 12,000 civilians were being resettled from border areas and implausibly claimed 30,000 homes and apartments had been damaged by Ukrainian shelling over the last two years, almost certainly a naked attempt to bump up the region’s housing budget. Bryansk Governor Alexander Bogomaz simply informed that emergency accommodation was being prepared if required.

Common Russian opinion was expressed by a woman refugee from the Kursk border area. Her brainwashed, bigoted world view reflects the success of Moscow’s indoctrination of working class Russians, but also widespread frustration with the ruling classes:

            ‘I don’t think we have a Zhukov or a Rokossovsky in the Ministry of Defence. It turns out that we only have crazy corruption there. Now they’re putting generals in jail one after another [referring to the many corruption cases] — and ordinary people are watching and thinking: ‘What, were you planning to win the war with people like that?’ …Ordinary people are very perplexed. In 2022, we had such a sincere surge of patriotism. Everything for the front,   everything for victory — people were weaving nets and doing everything. And then they saw that everything wasn’t going as it should. And they started thinking — who made these plans anyway? Maybe we shouldn’t have sent the guys to Kiev right away? Maybe we should have liberated   Donbass first? And why did they prepare for ten years [i.e. why did we allow Ukrainians to prepare for ten years for the next war], while we negotiated with the  Westerners for ten years? They showed their true colours at the Olympics— Satanists and faggots. Why complain now that they deceived us. The common people look and do not understand how it was possible to trust such people.’

For the Russian MOD, the imperative was less worrying about ‘Satanists and faggots’ in Paris, and more rushing as many troops as possible to stem the expansion of the Ukrainian salient. The Institute of the Study of War (ISW) has comprehensively collated formations and units reported in the area.³  It has been a very mixed bag – elements of as many as 30 different regiments and units are recorded.  What has not happened is a significant diversion of troops from the key Pokrovsk front in the Donbass where the Russian Army is making incremental advances.  Nor have Russians rushed to defend the Motherland; characteristic docility has been expressed as near-apathy towards the incursion.

Why?

The Ukrainian incursion into Kursk has provoked a rash of commentary. The reasons for the operation may be debated but the effects are clearer. First a taboo was broken. This included an unstated axiom held by NATO that Kyiv would not directly attack Russian territory. For Moscow of course there was shock, in equal measure to the psychological boost enjoyed by Ukrainians.

Multiple rationales have been suggested for the operation, voiced officially and unofficially:  the incursion was pre-emptive and will create a buffer zone against further attacks on Sumy Oblast (it hasn’t, the daily rocket and bomb attacks continue; in August alone there were 2,200 such attacks); the operation will divert significant Russian forces from the Donbass (it hasn’t); the occupation of Russian territory will force the Kremlin to re-think negotiations (it hasn’t, Lavrov has stated there can be no settlement now and the mad Medvedev has pontificated, ‘From this moment on the SVO must acquire an openly extraterritorial character. This is no longer just an operation to return our official territories and punish the Nazis. It is possible and necessary to go to all the lands of the still existing Ukraine’); the incursion is an effort to undermine regime legitimacy (it does, but Russian society is abnormally compliant to the will of the national leadership; criticising Putin is practically illegal); and lastly the operation has been designed to regain the strategic initiative.

Commentators have noted Kyiv chose to break out near the Sudzha gas distribution station (located southwest of Sudzha along the 38K-004 Highway, 500 meters from the Sumy-Kursk Oblast border).  Sudzha handles about half of Russia’s gas exports to Europe (approximately 43 million m3 of gas per day). The TurkStream pipeline covers the remainder.  However, to date, neither side has interfered with the station as both profit from the transit of gas.

Developments on the battlefield- where is this going?

In occupied Kursk, a benign modus vivendi has developed between Ukrainian troops and Russians who chose to remain. For the moment, the 20,000-odd stay-putters have proved the smart ones. One Ukrainian soldier has observed, ‘Surprisingly, some even speak Ukrainian fluently – better than some people in Kyiv.’  This is not surprising because the Kurshchyna region was ethnically Ukraine before the 1932-33 Holodomor (‘great famine’) that provoked widespread rural depopulation (an 1897 imperial census showed Sudzha was roughly two-thirds Ukrainian; similar ratios can be found in other border towns).  This is why older residents speak Ukrainian but consider themselves Russian.  At any rate, there is no animosity. Indeed, Ukrainian soldiers have been surprised at the hostility expressed towards Russian authorities who ‘lie, fool, come, but do nothing.’

The bigger concern for locals – Russians appear to be aware – is precisely the Russian Army and ‘liberation’ by destruction.  This is the dilemma now facing Moscow: after two-and-a-half years of erasing scores of Ukrainian villages and towns from the face of the earth, what now in Kursk?  The same?  Ukrainians are already reporting that Sudzha, where roughly 200 mostly pensioners remain, is being blasted ‘off the face of the earth’ by glide bombs and long range artillery.  Will the Russians who fled have homes to return to?

Putin, in the meantime, has been compelled to demonstrate again that something is being done to address the unsatisfactory situation. Another meeting was called on 24 August (National Flag Day) in which it was revealed that 133,190 locals were now refugees.  Just 41,000 had received any form of payment, and regional authorities had been forced to set up ‘524 temporary accommodation points’, some as far away as Moscow.  Opportunistic locals who stayed put have been requesting they also receive the housing ‘certificates’ (essentially government pay-outs) to carry out ‘renovations’ on claimed war damage.  It’s all becoming a typical Russian scam.

The fighting has been confused.  Over-bold Ukrainian vanguards have been caught out in ambushes.  Lancet and FPV drone attacks have been especially effective for the Russians.  The range of Ukrainian vehicles destroyed or damaged (see table below) testifies to continuing Ukrainian problems servicing a mixed fleet.

Russian claims that two Challenger 2s have been destroyed have no visual proof.  The only imagery that has emerged of a Challenger 2 is a short clip (see below) of a single tank operating with 82 ODShBr.  The example was protected by anti-drone screens, including over the engine block, but no ECM module was evident.

There have been low moments: Russian soldiers posing with the severed head of a Ukrainian soldier at Kolotylivka checkpoint on the Belgorod border.  Marines from 155th Separate Guards Marine Brigade (Pacific Fleet) claimed responsibility for the act.  Elsewhere, groups of Russians have continued to fight independently or simply gone into hiding, likely hoping the fighting will pass them by.

Morale has been poor. ‘The main thing for us was to survive,’ one Russian conscript told his captors.  Another confessed, ’The command said that help was coming to us. That the conscripts were being evacuated. But there was no evacuation… We had one thought: to save our own lives.’ A third expressed disinterest in Putin’s ‘special military operation’: For me, the war is when my grandparents fought… I don’t know what the SVO is… I did not fight.’ A young Chechen scoffed at the notion of Akhmat ‘special forces’ and (truthfully) protested he had been forced into the army: ‘We can’t do anything about it…I was mobilised, I wasn’t asked if I wanted it or not, I wasn’t given a choice, I didn’t come voluntarily either.’

Starting on 16 August and to protect the western flank, Ukrainian forces cleverly destroyed three bridges over the Seim River at Glushkovo Zvannoye and Karizh (the Russians also blew two bridges in anticipation of a Ukrainian advance that did not happen).  Since then, Russian engineers have erected as many as five pontoon bridges but the Ukrainians destroy them as quickly as they are built.

Difficult choices

Both Moscow and Kyiv now face difficult choices.  It would be unconscionable for Putin to permit a semi-permanent occupation of Russian territory.  But from where can troops be found to expel the Ukrainians, without weakening the eastern Ukrainian frontlines?  For Kyiv, holding the Kursk salient offers strategic benefits, but not at the cost of losing on the Pokrovsk front where a crisis is developing.  Does Syrsky have another surprise up his sleeve?

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1. Ukrainian Security Service
2. The prisoners were from 488th Motorized Rifle Regiment and the 1428th Motorized Rifle Regiment (150th Motorized Rifle Division, 8th CAA, Southern Military District [SMD]).
3. The Chechyna-based 71st Motor Rifle Regiment (58th Combined Arms Army [CAA], Southern Military District [SMD]); two airborne (VDV) battalions and elements of the 810th Naval Infantry Brigade (Black Sea Fleet [BSF]) from Kherson; Russian 155th Naval Infantry Brigade (BSF); elements of 38th and 64th Motor Rifle Brigades (35th Combined Arms Army [CAA], Eastern Military District [EMD]) from Zaporizhia; several unspecified infantry battalions from Pokrovsk in Donetsk Oblast; ‘bearded’ (borodatie) fighters from Luhansk Oblast (likely referring to Chechen Akhmat units); elements of 1009th Motor Rifle Regiment (6th CAA, Leningrad Military District [LMD]); 79th Motor Rifle Regiment (18th Motor Rifle Division, 11th Army Corps [AC], LMD); 272nd Motor Rifle Regiment (47th Tank Division, 1st Guards Tank Army [GTA], Moscow Military District [MMD]); and 138th Motor Rifle Brigade (6th CAA, LMD) from northern Kharkiv Oblast; an infantry battalion of 488th Motor Rifle Regiment (144th Motor Rifle Division, 20th CAA, MMD) from Kupyansk; a company of an unspecified motor rifle brigade operating in Grayvoron Raion, Belgorod Oblast; and a motor rifle regiment that was operating near Sotnytskyi Kozachok, Kharkiv Oblast. 56 VDV and 11 VDV Regiments have also been reported.  Additional OSINT indicates and OSINT assessments indicate that Russia has further committed elements of 488th Motor Rifle Regiment’s 17th and 18th Battalions (144th Motor Rifle Division, 20th Combined Arms Army [CAA], Moscow Military District [MMD]);  252nd Motor Rifle Regiment (3rd Motor Rifle Division, 20th CAA, MMD); 102nd Motor Rifle Regiment’s 31st Battalion (150th Motor Rifle Division, 8th CAA, SMD); 9th Motor Rifle Regiment (1st Donetsk People’s Republic [DNR] Army Corps [AC]); the 143rd Motor Rifle Regiment (127th Motor Rifle Division, 5th CAA, Eastern Military District [EMD]); Chechen Akhmat Spetsnaz units;,22nd Motor Rifle Regiment (72nd Motor Rifle Division, 44th AC, Leningrad Military District [LMD]); 25th Motor Rifle Brigade (6th CAA, LMD); 200th Motor Rifle Brigade (14th AC, LMD); Nizhnyi Novgorod’s “Kulibin” detachment; the DNR “Pyatnashka” Brigade; “Veterany” 60th Motorized Rifle Brigade’s “Oleg Mamiev” 3rd reconnaissance and assault detachment and “Otvazhnye” assault squad (Russian Volunteer Corps); unspecified BARS volunteer formations, and 5th Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade (6th Air Defense Army); elements of the 22nd Motor Rifle Regiment, and “Veterany” 60th Motor Rifle Brigade.