This bit seems relevant, given that Ukraine's stated intention has always been reclaiming their own land:
The overall goal of the incursion is not immediately clear. Conflict analysts have suggested that Ukraine may be trying to alleviate some pressure on its forces elsewhere along the sprawling front line, gain leverage for potential territorial negotiations with Russia, or even just humiliate Moscow and boost morale in Kyiv.
That, or “reclaiming their own land” was a bit more expansive than we all realized /s
They're doing all three of those, and also may be effectively flanking the Kremlin's defense along that part of the front.
I've heard Kursk has the gas pipeline to Europe.
Time for denazification of Russia.
we need to stop calling everything we don't like nazism. Russia will need to be de-Putin'd
Slava Ukraini
Heroyam Slava 🇺🇦
Zelenskyy went from being a comedian to clowning on Putin in only a few years.
Logistics is king folks, remember that.
I'm sure access to Western intelligence doesn't hurt either.
And having competent generals.
Even as we speak, one of the few good and well respected Russian generals who dared speak out at the poor leadership of the general staff, had been arrested for supposed fraud. https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-arrested-general-ivan-popov-fraud-d8c4d6a7d447ff801b3f15bc540f77b6
I approve. The more idiots are in charge wasting what little offensive capabilities Russia has left the better for Ukraine.
Is there a list of more competent people, I mean fraudsters? Russian authorities can sure need some anonymous tips, right?
I used to think Putin is Stalin-lite, but he is actually more in line with an incompetent tsar. There is stark resemblance with the Putin's army and the post-Napoleonic tsarist Russian army. Both bathed themselves in past military glories from defeating Napoleon and Nazi Germany respectively. They paraded themselves with flashy uniforms and spectacles of new technological weaponry. But in the subsequent years and generations after that, tsarist Russia got mauled by the Ottomans, French and British alliance and Japanese. And post-WWII Russia got their assets handed by the Afghans and now Ukrainians.
I forget who said it, but an American general once said "Amateurs discuss tactics; professionals discuss logistics."
Here's to Ukraine becoming the capital of the larger Ukrainian Federation that will be needed after the fall of Russia.
I mean, fuck Putin, but don't delude yourself that this will get easier
Is this the timeline where Ukraine kills Putin and puts his head on a Pike? Find out next time on dragon ball z!
What did the fish do to deserve that?
It knows what it did
Maybe they should just swap countries and be done with it.
I still wonder what their main objective is
To disperse the army from the northeastern fronts. Russia is now forced to defend the entire border and cannot focus their attacks on their previous objectives.
This is a good move.
That, and they can potentially dismantle staging areas for planes and other infrastructure (in this case gas pipeline).
Both of those, and they force engagements with Russia to force them to throw men and materiel at it, further depleting Russian stockpiles.
I hope its not just for negotiating.
I hope by breaking the Russian front, they have created openings that they can now exploit to tear down Russian defenses.
Russia has created a really difficult frontal defense thats many layers of mine fields and defensive positions interlaced. But now their sides and backs are exposed and it's much easier for Ukraine to out flank the defense and unseat Russian defenses.
Why hope it's "not just for negotiating"? I mean why not use this as leverage to force the Russians to negotiate on Ukraine's terms?
Because its a big tactical advantage that they opened a gaping hole in Russian defensive lines.
Defenses are strongest in the direction they are facing. They are very weak from the sides and even worse from the rear. (Ukraine now has a lot of Russian rear it can take advantage of, from Kursk)
If Ukraine has the manpower they could take this little bit of land, manoeuvre around the Russian lines, wreck their shit and get back a lot of land that was stolen from them.
Just to underline what this comment is saying: this type of breakthrough was the wet dream of WW1. The race to the sea, where the western front was established, was based on finding a flank and turning it. That was the objective of most warfare up to that point, and it ended because they ran out of ground on which to turn a flank. Then they couldn't meaningfully break through the defenses (or layers of, to be more accurate), like we see Ukraine doing in Kursk. If they turn the flank, they'll have routing russians for days, and have achieved maneuver warfare again.
I think it's actually irrelevant really because I don't reasonably see a situation where Putin is going to be prepared to negotiate. He seems to see this war as his lasting legacy (there have been rumors that he might have some terminal condition, possibly cancer), he doesn't want his legacy to be defeat, he wants it to be victory even if it requires the death of about 80% of the population.
The only way that Russia would negotiate is if Putin is no longer in charge.
Negotiations happen when one or, more likely, two sides don't see a way to improve their positions with military force.
The rumors you're speaking of are a direct consequence of Russia being an autocracy. When you have a country whose ruler doesn't leave on their own (a dictator), people start speculating on when he's going to die. These rumors have been going around for about a decade, I believe, and are pretty much meaningless.
Now, about "securing a legacy." I think it's much more trivial than that. Invading Ukraine was a good way to secure presidency for the next 1-2 terms and to eradicate opposition within the country. If that's the case, then, in a sense, he got what he wanted, although he likely also expected the war to be short and victorious (judging by the state media narrative at the time). That didn't happen. And now there are other issues at hand for him.
So sad Vlad
Business Insider - News Source Context (Click to view Full Report)
Information for Business Insider:
MBFC: Left-Center - Credibility: High - Factual Reporting: Mostly Factual - United States of America
Wikipedia about this source
Media Bias Fact Check | bot supportSearch topics on Ground.News
https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-captured-hundreds-square-miles-russian-territory-general-2024-8
Is this a real thing? I only hear news about it on a couple niche youtube channels that I am not sure aren't propaganda. Searching "Ukraine" on Lemmy for the last week yields a very small number of results. I haven't heard word one about it from my mainstream sources. What the fuck? Is there an embargo on this or something??
That's not the impression I've been getting. This has been covered extensively from places ranging from BBC and Telegraph to PBS, and numerous reddit subs. I haven't seen this much activity centered on Ukraine in a while.
Does Ukraine get an exception from the general advice against invading Russia? Winter is coming. But they kinda have some advantages over prior attempts.
Yes they do get an exception because they are just as familiar to the climate as the orcs. It's not like Kursk et al has proper defenses RUs can hole up inside. The orcs literally just lost the Kursk battallian HQ building lol (forgive the leddit link)
I've been looking for some sort of analysis of this Kursk incursion but have come up empty handed. I'm looking for something along the lines of Markus Reisner's analyses.
In particular, I'm wondering what the likely paths are to altering the course of the war.
How likely is it that Ukraine will be able to hold this territory? Will they be able to use it as a staging area to launch additional attacks?
Is it likely to alter the artillery equation? Russia currently fires 3-5 times as many artillery shells as Ukraine does. Does this do something like limiting their production rates or their ability to deliver ordinance to the front lines?
Is it likely that Ukraine killed or captured enough Russian troops to impact the broader war?
A phrase like, "That figure is almost as much territory as Russia has seized in Ukraine this year." kind of implies that there has been a shift in the momentum of the war and that we can expect such announcements more regularly going forward. Is that actually likely?
My pessimistic guess is that this was a brilliant tactical move that will ultimately get steamrolled by Russia's sheer mass, but I'd love to read an analysis from someone with more expertise.
this has to be something designed to pull forces away from other places. I don't think Ukraine is planning on holding it for any length of time.
we saw video come out about 200 miles from the front in Kursk showing military transport trucks that had been struck by Ukraine as they were going to reinforce the region, which means Ukraine has dedicated deep strike capabilities to this part of the battlefield.
I think the intention is to kill and destroy as much Russian personnel and materiel as they can while it's being transported. like they've mapped out all of the travel lines in to and out of Kursk, and they have dedicated weapons platforms prepared to destroy anything that comes up those roads. they'll be able to blitz a whole bunch of Russian equipment without even having to engage them on the ground, if those trucks were full (there were stacked bodies in the video), that's 300 casualties without having to put any of your infantry in danger.
Blitzing into largely undefended territories and nabbing large amounts of territory is kind of the easy part. As anyone who plays any sort of RTS, the key question is how you set up defenses and maintain logistics to thwart counter-offensives. The good news is that Ukraine has options. They can choose to dig in before Russia amasses troops to attack and legitimately try to hold onto the territory, or they can simply back out and use this as a skirmish to divide Russian forces before launching another offensive elsewhere.
This seems to a) be intended to divide Russian attention and spread their forces out, b) be used in negotiation and applying domestic pressure to Putin, and c) provide a greater buffer for air-defense to counter inbound artillery and missiles. Who knows for sure though.
A community for discussing events around the World
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
News !news@lemmy.world
Politics !politics@lemmy.world
World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/