On Sunday, Russian and Ukrainian forces introduced separate but simultaneous attacks along other axes around the 250-square-mile salient that Ukrainian troops dug into Russia’s western Kursk Oblast in August.
It is imaginable that one attack was aimed at ruining the other, but we don’t know which one. Did the Ukrainians know the Russians were coming? Did the Russians know the Ukrainians were coming? It’s hard to say, and it may be only a few days before the smoke clears and the motivations and effects become evident.
The Russians attacked with a giant force of armored vehicles the northwestern edge of the salient around the villages of Malaya Loknya, Leonidovo and Sverdlikovo.
The attack, involving elements of the 155th and 810th Naval Infantry Brigades and the 106th Airborne Division, included around 40 vehicles, making it “the largest since our invasion,” according to Kriegsforscher, a Ukrainian marine corps drone operator who has been fighting in Kursk for months.
Ukrainian drone brigades and teams, in addition to those in Kriegsforscher, have defeated countless Russian attacks on this domain since last fall, deploying a combination of mines, missiles, artillery and drones to blow up teams of d. The Russian attack is moving, unsurprisingly, along the same few routes leading to the salient.
At the same time as those 40 Russian cars moved, Ukrainian troops traveling in armored trucks and tracked and wheeled infantry fighting vehicles – from the 95th Air Assault Brigade – followed an organization of Russian cars. minesweeper heading towards Berdin, a village in no man’s land north of the Kursk salient.
Russian drones, including jam-proof models steered via fiber-optic cable, swarmed the Ukrainian vehicles, scoring several confirmed hits.
The Ukrainians may have complexes of just under 3 miles, but it’s unclear whether they’ll be able to dig in and hold on to the ground they’ve gained. If the Ukrainians succeed and the Russians fail, the difference may also be just as a surprise.
The Russians have been attacking the Kursk salient with the same brigades and regiments in the same spaces several times a week, week after week, since at least October. Worse, those attacks used a lot of armor, and cars that are easy to spot are vulnerable to enemy drones. When tanks lead the way, “no one reaches the finish line,” complained one Russian blogger.
The Ukrainian attack hit a component of the front line that had been relatively quiet recently and therefore could have benefited from a bigger surprise. “Some Russian channels have recently warned of a Ukrainian rally near Kursk and a possible offensive,” said Rob Lee, an analyst at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia. But the rally took place far enough from the final site of the attack that the Russians simply did not prepare quick defenses.
Moreover, the Ukrainian assault was led by mine-clearing vehicles and relied on armored trucks and fighting vehicles for transportation, but the transports seem to have dropped off their infantry passengers as quickly as possible before speeding back to the main Ukrainian line.
“The aircraft seeks to land troops on a ‘carousel,'” one Russian blogger reported. This, combined with significant radio interference, can minimize, but eliminate, Ukrainian losses caused by drones.
Sources:
1. Kriegsforscher
2. Rob Lee
3. PJ “giK”
4. Ukraine Control Map
5. I Am Sniper
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