Why Ukraine Kursk Gain Is Greater Strategic Success Than Russia's In Pokrovsk

Ukraine has taken more Russian territory is Kursk in three weeks than Russia has taken in the Donbas all year. Russia's slow grind towards Pokrovsk is the latest western media-driven crisis that probably wont be - like Chasiv Yar, Avdiivka and Toretsk. 

If the heavy breathers at the New York Times and their ilk have not learned by now that Russian offensive threats have a way of not working out, they probably never will be because they are being ordered not to by their owner. In Kursk, Ukraine has changed the war's narrative. 15 Kms from Pokrovsk, the Russians are doing what they usually do - badly, expensively and insignificantly. JL

Phillips O'Brien reports in his substack:

Ukraine is preparing to create a very large salient inside Russia—larger than the area Russia has taken in the Donbas in 2024—and to hold it for the foreseeable future. At the same time the Ukrainian are having this clear strategic success in Kursk, the Russians are doing what they have doing for almost 5 months—slowly plod along towards Pokrovsk. We are being told, constantly, that the Ukrainian Kursk offensive has made this Russian operation more successful—but there is little evidence of this at all. The Russian Army has advanced about ONE MILE towards Pokrovsk this week. If anything, the Russian advance towards Pokrovsk has slowed in the last week

The Ukrainian Offensive into Russia’s Kursk Oblast is now getting close to three weeks old (19 days as this is being written). A few things are becoming clearer.

The first is that Ukraine is preparing to create a very large salient inside Russia—larger than the area Russia has taken in the Donbas in 2024—and to hold it for the foreseeable future. During the last week Ukrainian advances have slowed and one part of the salient has taken shape. Here is the Institute Study of War map of the area Ukraine has seized.

As Ive said for a while now, they have the city of Sudzha, with its road connections and its cutting of Russian rail lines, as the base of operations, and are building out. It looks like the Ukrainians are close to taking Korenevo to anchor the salient to the northeast.

In terms of this war in 2024, this is quite a large area—equivalent to Greater Los Angeles. However that is not all. The Ukrainians have also isolated almost an equivalently large area to the west—the area south of the Seym River, where they have cut the bridges. I have used my rather basic graphic skills and put bars (the blue stripes) on the Deep State Map to indicate the area to which the Russians no longer have bridge access.

If the Russians cant re-establish regular supply to that area, they cant hold it and it will become an addition to the Ukrainian salient. The Ukrainians now control all the roads into the area, so the only Russian option is to get supplies across the river.

What you are looking at is an important strategic achievement. First, the Ukrainians are putting together a large, suppliable and defensible area within Russia itself. Its a very large area, that the Russians will struggle to take back without major force.

Second, it will provide a buffer to the Sumy region in Ukraine itself—as the border with Russia has been pushed back for about 30-35 kilometres for a very wide area. Thats a useful security concern.

However the benefits of the offensive go beyond the battlefield. The Ukrainians have shown their supporters (and particularly the administration) once again how flimsy the supposed Russian red lines are. The Ukrainians have invaded, seized and might soon start fortifying a part of Russia itself—and the Kremlin’s response has been to pretend its the “New Normal”. Two years ago drone attacks into Crimea seemed to cause panic in some quarters—and now we have an actual invasion of Russia.

The Russians will have to defend the rest of their very long border with Ukraine or something like this could happen in another part.

Finally, the narrative of the war has changed. Ukraine has pulled off an operation that Russia simply could not. The opsec, speed and fulfilling of goals that the Ukrainians have done in a few weeks constrasts rather remarkably to the Russian offensive in Kharkiv which was launched in May. At the time that Russian attack was hailed as a strategic coup which would lead to huge problems for Ukraine. Now its a beached whale, which has added to Russian losses.

Note: The Different Ways the Russian Offensive towards Kharkiv was Presented and Analysed Compared to the Ukrainian Offensive into Kursk—Im putting together a paper on it. It demonstrates a rather extreme bias towards the narrative of Russian strength and strategic acumen that seems to permeate much of the western analytical community and press. I will try to finish it this week.

But, but, but Pokrovsk

At the same time the Ukrainian are having this clear strategic success in Kursk, the Russians are doing what they have doing for almost 5 months—slowly plod along towards Pokrovsk. We are being told, constantly, that the Ukrainian Kursk offensive has made this Russian operation more successful—but there is little evidence of this at all. If anything, the Russian advance towards Pokrovsk has slowed in the last week. Its getting there, but extremely slowly.

Here is the Deep State Map from today. the most forward Russian forces are about 14 kilometres from Pokrovsk.

Here is the same map from last Sunday. The closest Russian point to Pokrovsk was just over 15 kilometres.

So, the Russian Army has advanced about ONE MILE towards Pokrovsk this week. Yet this ponderous and bloody advance is being portrayed as a great strategic victory—such as in this article in the Times—and at the same time the Kursk Offensive is being relegated to secondary status.

We have reached peak strangeness in war reporting. Pokrovsk is the latest Ukrainian city to be declared strategic by the press this year (the title has also gone to Avdiivka, Chasiv Yar and Toretsk). Yet none of them are any more strategic than Sudzha, which the Ukrainians took in a few days. Hint—none of these areas are strategic as they dont affect the force generation on either side. Its all about political control of territory.

Moreover, what is fascinating is that Putin’s inability to concentrate the needed force to try and drive the Ukrainians out of Russia is being portrayed as a strategic masterstroke so that he can continue his slow, bloody advances towards Pokrovsk. Again this is so strange. It might be that Russian logistics are so inefficient that he cant actually concentrate the force quickly—so that its some strategically brilliant choice. Moreover, it this slowness is allowing the Ukrainians to carve out their defensible salient—which will cause very high losses for the Russians to retake. Its more likely a sign of strategic failure than anything else.

Rant over—just wanted to point out how very strange the war reporting is. Its more a series of pre-conceived biases being expressed, with evidence cherry picked to support those biases. Its why it was so very wrong at the start of the Kharkiv Offensive, and why it was so ridiculously wrong at the start of the Kursk Offensive.

So far the Ukrainian operation is a strategic success.