Fog of war is heavy over the Ukrainian operation in Kursk right now. The Ukrainian side is very circumspect and has been from the start. The Russian side was providing some information in the first few days but now also has gone quiet as the Russian government has started to crack down on individuals posting useful information and Russian military bloggers are now towing toeing the state line quite a bit more.
So is Ukraine doing well, poorly, the dreaded “stalemate”? Who knows? We don’t know Ukraine’s goals or their force strength. We don’t know Russian opposition levels. If this was a small force crossing by Ukraine it was definitely successful. If it was 12 Brigades stopped only a few kms past the border by a few poorly trained conscripts, then not so successful. But we really don’t know and won’t know until at least one side starts to loosen up with some information. So if you are like me and just REALLY WANT TO KNOW I’ll pass you my chill pills as we practice deep breathing together.
But we do have a sense of a few things. The incursion began near Sudzha and is following 3 main paths to the NW, N and NE. Notably, there was no reported movement to the SE. This suggests the goal is to the north which is where the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant is and why folks are talking about it. the city of Kursk itself is to the NE. Any deeper movement into Kursk will need good supply lines which for Ukraine and Russia both equal railroads.
Dashed lines are railroads
In the map above I roughly drew in the railroads in a black dashed line. The three blue lines represent what Ukrainian movement has been “reported”. Don’t read too much into the size of those lines. The rail line to Rylsk is a terminal line. It looks like it ends at an industrial site of some sort. So we can see that the key to Russian supply of western Kursk is control of the rail line at either Korenevo or L’gov. L’gov in particular is important as it also has the E38 highway going through it.
This tells us that if Ukraine can take L’gov (or at least the southern part of it) it shuts off major supply to everything west. Russia would still have the road leading north out of Rylsk but that road gets within 5 miles of Ukraine. I would not be surprised to see an attack from that direction by Ukraine at some point when the time is right. We’ve gotten a single report of something happening down around Tyotkino.
With information as choked off as it is right now we don’t have much to go on. So my current guess is that Ukraine hopes to take a big chunk out of western Kursk for some reason. This would either be as a goal unto itself, or it would be required if a larger goal of taking the city of Kursk or taking land south of Kursk. Hopefully we’ll get more details soon (and only as soon is safe for Ukraine) to get a better picture of what’s going on.
Slava Ukraine
