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俄烏戰爭現況：開欄文
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瀏覽4,451 ｜回應31｜推薦2 |
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烏克蘭的「春季攻勢」蛻化為「夏季攻勢」後，明顯地陷入膠著；沒有什麼值得寫封家書來匯報的進展。以下轉載兩篇「戰況評估」。我存檔備查；看官們請自行參考。
第一篇號稱是：分別從普丁和澤倫斯基兩位的角度，就(佔有)領土、心理、以及軍事三個層面所做的分析。
第二篇是布林肯國務卿的評估。我相信政治作用含量應該超標，可信度自然必須打個折扣。何況，自鮑爾之後，「美國國務卿會說謊」是討論政治的人不得不常記於心的教訓。
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烏克蘭將大量使用機器小戰車 - Matthew Loh
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請至原網頁觀看機器小戰車照片。
Ukraine expects the war to see exponentially more 'iron soldiers,' or ground drones with guns that can fill troop roles
Matthew Loh, 09/20/24
* Ukraine's intelligence chief predicted that ground drones in battle will increase "in the order of tens" this year.
* Kyrylo Budanov said much of Ukraine's impetus for these drones is to avoid sending troops to die.
* Some of Ukraine's experimental ground drones, which it calls "iron soldiers," can be fit with guns or explosives.
Ukrainian intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov expects the war to enter a new phase — one that will see far more land-based drones replacing soldiers on the front lines.
In an interview last weekend at the Yalta European Strategy conference in Kyiv, Budanov said the unmanned tech is new but progressing.
"These are just emerging things," he said, per a translation provided by the conference. "In this calendar year, I think the number of those robot systems will grow, grow immensely in the order of tens."
Budanov said drone innovation was driven simply by a human desire to not die.
"People are hesitant to go into battle, so if you can send a drone, 10 drones, or one soldier, you'll always choose to send 10 drones," he added, per another translation from The New Voice of Ukraine.
The intelligence chief foresaw both warring nations developing countermeasures to ground-based drones, but said it's clear unmanned vehicles will be a "trademark" in military innovation for the next two to three decades.
"You can build another drone of 10, but lives are priceless. This is the most important thing," he added.
Ukraine has been testing ground-based drones armed with explosives and turrets, intermittently releasing footage of what it says can range from "kamikaze" vehicles to remote guns.
The Ukrainian Defense Ministry said in May that it had officially approved 10 "robotic complexes" for use in its military, mentioning "ground-based robotic platforms" that can be used to carry weapons or fire them.
Dubbing the platforms "iron soldiers" in July, the ministry said it aimed to have to drones fulfill combat orders for troops, and mentioned robots that can act as sappers, recon, gun platforms, and logistics assistants.
Russia has also been seen using unmanned ground platforms, such as two drones armed with AGS-17 grenade launchers spotted in March.
Ukraine expects to build over 1 million drones in 2024 after galvanizing production late last year. This is an exponential leap in production since the war began in early 2022.
Kyiv said it had produced 50 times more drones in December alone compared to the entirety of the war's first year.
The war has, in recent months, also featured a smattering of new drone unveilings, including that of an aerial drone that can drop thermite on the battlefield and another equipped with an AK-74 rifle.
Meanwhile, Russian leader Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Moscow plans to bump drone production to 1.4 million in 2024, which would be about a 10-fold increase compared to previous years.
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俄國開始在庫爾斯克反擊烏軍 - Patrick Reevell
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可能就是這場戰爭的轉捩點或決戰時刻。
Russia appears to have launched initial major counterattack against Ukraine in Kursk
Russian forces appeared to drive a wedge into Ukrainian lines, analysts said.
Patrick Reevell, 09/12/24
Russia appears to have launched its first major counterattack to drive Ukrainian forces out of Russia's Kursk region more than a month after Ukraine began its surprise offensive, according to Russian and Ukrainian sources as well as independent military analysts.
Russian forces appeared already to have some success on Tuesday -- retaking some territory and driving a wedge into Ukrainian lines in Kursk, analysts said.
Videos posted by pro-Russian military bloggers and geolocated by ABC News showed a large Russian armored column attacking toward the village of Snagost. Another video appears to show Ukrainian troops taken prisoner.
The Russian counterattack is focused on the western flank of Ukraine's incursion into Kursk that seized hundreds of square kilometers since it began on Aug. 6.
John Helin -- a researcher at the Blackbird Group, which conducts open-source military analysis -- wrote on X that Russian troops had launched a push from the west and north, driving a wedge behind Ukrainian troops toward Snagost. Russian military bloggers claim Russian forces are now attacking the village of Obukhov, which would mean Russian troops could have advanced more than 6 miles on Tuesday, Helin wrote in an article for the Finnish newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat.
A prominent pro-Ukrainian military blogger, Serhiy Sternenko, confirmed Russia has launched a major counterattack and that the situation is dangerous for Ukraine.
"The situation can develop into a poorly controlled crisis," Sternenko wrote on Telegram, saying Ukrainian forces lack adequate coordination in the area and are disorganized.
Military analysts and Ukrainian commentators said Russia's attack was predictable.
"I won't dramatize about the Kursk region, war is war, a fully expected response from the enemy," Stanislav Osman, a volunteer soldier with the 24th "Aidar" Assault Battalion, wrote on his Telegram account. But he said Ukrainian commanders had ignored some warnings from Ukrainian front-line troops in the area.
Ukraine succeeded in seizing hundreds of square miles and dozens of villages inside the Kursk region in the early days of its surprise offensive. Russia has struggled to respond. Ukraine has barely advanced since the first two weeks, although it has kept Russian forces on the defensive. Tuesday's counterattack suggested Russia is now finally seeking to turn the tables and begin trying to push Ukraine back.
Ukraine's incursion into Kursk has been viewed as a high-risk gamble by most independent military experts. Although it has succeeded in shifting the narrative in the war, analysts have warned Ukraine still risks suffering dangerous losses as it tries to hold onto territory in Kursk.
At the same time, Russian forces have made more rapid advances in eastern Ukraine since the Kursk incursion, appearing to take advantage of Ukraine diverting troops and ammunition. Russian forces have advanced toward the city of Pokrovsk, a key logistical hub, and stretched Ukrainian lines more broadly in southeast Donbas. Though Russia's rate of advance has reportedly slowed in the past week.
MORE: Blinken lands in Kyiv amid Ukraine push for long-range missile strike permission
MORE: Ukraine confirms 'tough' new foreign minister in Zelenskyy cabinet revamp
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即以其人之道，還治其人之身 – 路透社
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Ukraine targets Moscow in biggest drone attack yet
Reuters, 09/10/24
MOSCOW (Reuters) -Ukraine targeted the Russian capital on Tuesday in its biggest drone attack so far, killing at least one and wrecking dozens of homes in the Moscow region and forcing around 50 flights to be diverted from airports around Moscow.
Russia, the world's biggest nuclear power, said it had destroyed at least 20 Ukrainian attack drones as they swarmed over the Moscow region, which has a population of more than 21 million, and 124 more over eight other regions.
At least one person was killed near Moscow, Russian authorities said. Three of Moscow's four airports were closed for more than six hours and almost 50 flights were diverted.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that the drone attack was another reminder of the real nature of Ukraine's political leadership, which he said was made up of Russia's enemies.
"There is no way that night time strikes on residential neighbourhoods can be associated with military action," said Peskov.
"The Kyiv regime continues to demonstrate its nature. They are our enemies and we must continue the special military operation to protect ourselves from such actions," he said, using the expression Moscow uses to describe its war in Ukraine.
Kyiv said Russia, which sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022, had attacked it overnight with 46 drones, of which 38 were destroyed.
The drone attacks on Russia damaged at high-rise apartment buildings in the Ramenskoye district of the Moscow region, setting flats on fire, residents told Reuters.
A 46-year-old woman was killed and three people were wounded in Ramenskoye, Moscow regional governor Andrei Vorobyov said.
Residents said they awoke to blasts and fire.
"I looked at the window and saw a ball of fire," Alexander Li, a resident of the district told Reuters. "The window got blown out by the shockwave."
Georgy, a resident who declined to give his surname, said he heard a drone buzzing outside his building in the early hours.
"I drew back the curtain and it hit the building right before my eyes, I saw it all," he said. "I took my family and we ran outside."
The Ramenskoye district, some 50 km (31 miles) southeast of the Kremlin, has a population of around a quarter of a million people, according to official data.
More than 70 drones were also downed over Russia's Bryansk region and tens more over other regions, Russia's defence ministry said. There was no damage or casualties reported there.
As Russia advances in eastern Ukraine, Kyiv has taken the war to Russia with a cross-border attack into Russia's western Kursk region that began on Aug. 6 and by carrying out increasingly large drone attacks deep into Russian territory.
DRONE WAR
The war has largely been a grinding artillery and drone war along the 1,000 km (620 mile) heavily fortified front line in southern and eastern Ukraine involving hundreds of thousands of soldiers.
Moscow and Kyiv have both sought to buy and develop new drones, deploy them in innovative ways, and seek new ways to destroy them - from using shotguns to advanced electronic jamming systems.
Both sides have turned cheap commercial drones into deadly weapons while ramping up their own production and assembly to attack targets including tanks and energy infrastructure such as refineries and airfields.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has sought to insulate Moscow from the grinding rigours of the war, has called Ukrainian drone attacks that target civilian infrastructure such as nuclear power plants "terrorism" and has vowed a response.
Moscow and other big Russian cities have largely been insulated from the war.
Russia itself has hit Ukraine with thousands of missiles and drones in the last two-and-a-half years, killing thousands of civilians, wrecking much of the country's energy system and damaging commercial and residential properties across the country.
Ukraine says it has a right to strike back deep into Russia, though Kyiv's Western backers have said they do not want a direct confrontation between Russia and the U.S.-led NATO military alliance.
There was no immediate comment from Ukraine about Tuesday's attacks. Both sides deny targeting civilians.
Tuesday's attack follows drone attacks Ukraine launched in early September chiefly targeting Russia's energy and power facilities.
Authorities in the Tula region, which neighbours the Moscow region to its north, said drone wreckage had fallen onto a fuel and energy facility but that the "technological process" of the facility was not affected.
(Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Writing by Guy Faulconbridge/Andrew Osborn; Editing by Lincoln Feast, Michael Perry and Alex Richardson)
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機器狗上俄、烏戰場 - Sharon Adarlo
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Ukraine Is Getting Ready to Unleash a Swarm of Robot Dogs
Ukraine is letting the dogs out.
Sharon Adarlo, 08/17/24
To address its manpower shortage, Ukraine is planning to let loose packs of robot dogs against the invading Russian military, Agence France-Presse reports.
The robot dogs will be used to detect land mines, go on reconnaissance missions to scope out the enemy in hostile territory, and carry weapons, ammunition, and medicine to the battlefield.
During a recent demonstration to journalists, one of the robot dogs dubbed BAD ONE crouched and ran not unlike its flesh and blood counterpart, showing off its compact size and stealthy agility.
"This dog limits the risk for soldiers and increases operational capabilities," a robot dog operator named Yuri, who's working for a British military equipment company, told AFP. "This is the core function of the dog."
The robot dog has a battery run time of two hours, an onboard thermal imaging system, and a kill switch that erases all of its data if the robot would fall in the hands of the Russians.
It just goes to show how military forces will use and push technology to their limit in order to gain a battlefield advantage, even if the results look like they came out of the "Terminator" movies.
Dogs of Ware
Besides Ukraine, other countries like the United States and China are also deploying robot dogs on the battlefield.
Recently, China unveiled a robot dog with a machine gun strapped to its back, a dystopian glimpse at the future of warfare. Israel is also using robot dogs in its war against Hamas in Gaza.
In addition to robot dogs, a variety of different types of drones have been a pivotal part of the war in Ukraine, a hotbed for new and experimental military technologies.
Ukraine is using the robot dogs to limit the risks to soldiers on the front lines.
"We were concerned about the increasingly frequent reports of casualties at the front due to enemy drones," Kyle Thorburn, head of UK-based military contractor Brit Alliance, told German magazine Bild. "So we discussed the possibilities of a safer solution for reconnaissance missions in high-risk areas."
And the bid appears to be paying off.
"This not only increases the effectiveness of combat operations, but also strengthens the morale of the army," Thorburn added.
More on robot dogs: Boston Dynamics Shows Off Robodog With Fur
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烏軍入侵俄境是戰術上神來之筆 -- Matthew Sussex
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相較於沃爾特和米爾先梅兩位教授，撒賽克斯教授顯然對烏克蘭相當友善。請參照《烏軍攻入俄境有意義嗎？》和《評論《烏軍攻入俄境有意義嗎？》》兩文(本欄2024/08/17)。至於誰的論述更能被現實印證，年底前應該可以揭曉；拭目以待吧。
Was Ukraine’s incursion of Russia a tactical stroke of genius? It sent a strong message to Putin – and the West
Matthew Sussex, 08/15/24
Ukrainians have long become used to grim news reports from their besieged lands. But that’s suddenly changed. Following its remarkably successful incursion of Russia’s Kursk region, cheerful Ukrainian journalists are now covering the war from captured Russian territory.
Ukraine’s surprise counterpunch, taking the fight into Russia for the first time, shows no signs yet of having reached a high-water mark. Unlike previous pinprick raids by the anti-Putin Freedom of Russia Legion militia group, Ukraine’s armed forces are using some of their most seasoned units.
Having punched through a thinly defended portion of its border near the Russian city of Kursk – itself famous as a scene of one of the Soviet Union’s greatest victories against Germany in the Second World War – Ukraine’s forces reportedly have captured up to 70 settlements.
In the process, they’ve taken control of a piece of land encompassing some 1,000 square kilometers, up to 30 kilometers deep inside Russia.
There are numerous theories about what Ukraine wants to achieve. One is that it seeks a sizeable foothold in Russia as currency to trade for captured Ukrainian territory in future peace talks. Recent signs that its forces are digging in might support that claim.
Another is that Kiev’s goals are more modest, including holding onto key towns and road/rail hubs. That complicates Moscow’s logistics efforts and would still give Ukraine territorial chips for the negotiating table.
A third is that its forces will withdraw, having forced Moscow to secure its border by diverting significant military resources away from Ukraine.
On balance, the second two explanations are probably closer to the mark. Holding large swathes of Russian territory will be difficult for Ukraine once the Kremlin’s armed forces eventually overcome their characteristic initial inertia. Attempting to do so would permanently tie up some of Kiev’s best soldiers, and put them at risk of death or capture.
Of course, Kiev has other motives, too. Apart from a big morale boost for a war-weary population, Ukraine might seek to recover some of its captured soldiers. Recently, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky observed that Ukraine’s forces were “replenishing the exchange fund.”
Further, he noted, Kiev’s decision was motivated by the desire to show Russians that the war had consequences for them – not just for Ukrainians. The incursion is also sending a message to the United States and its NATO allies.
The White House, in particular, has dithered about allowing Ukraine to use long-range American weapons to strike Russian territory, worrying that doing so is a dangerous escalation that also plays into Russian narratives about NATO being a de facto combatant in the war.
By striking into Russian territory, Kyiv is sending a powerful reminder to Washington – deeply distracted by its upcoming presidential election – that its forces can achieve surprising results with the right capabilities.
Will the Kremlin escalate?
Moscow’s response to the incursion, so far, lends weight to the Ukrainian argument that American escalation fears are overblown.
Regime cronies like former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev have made vague threats about vigorous punishments, and Kremlin-friendly propagandists on social media have alleged NATO troops are operating alongside Ukrainian soldiers.
But that’s nothing new: Russian officials and commentators have falsely claimed for years that NATO is fighting with Ukrainian forces and that Ukraine faces annihilation if it does not submit.
Viewed in that light, Kiev’s move into Russia is a calculated gamble. Ukraine assesses the international, morale and material gains to sufficiently outweigh any anticipated reprisals.
Of course, that’s based on the assumption that any reprisals will be on a similar scale to those previously meted out to Ukraine. The Putin regime has routinely demonstrated it regards the laws and norms of war as inconvenient distractions, preferring instead to use fear and wanton destruction to cow its adversaries into capitulation.
But that’s also nothing Ukrainians haven’t seen before – in the slaughter of civilians at Bucha, the flattening of cities like Mariupol, the indiscriminate attacks against civilian hospitals and the veiled Russian threats about “accidents” at the occupied nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia.
Russia’s rudderless response
Tellingly, Ukraine’s incursion has again revealed the manifest failings of Russia’s armed forces. In particular, it highlights the hubris afflicting its leaders, who mistakenly believed Kiev could fall in a mere three days. That’s now more than 900 days ago.
Many have justifiably lauded Ukraine’s preparations for its incursion as a masterpiece of operational security. It was certainly no mean feat to garner the resources necessary for a sizeable assault without tipping off either Moscow or Washington, both of which reacted initially with surprise.
However, there have been several reports that Russia’s military leadership dismissed warnings about Ukrainian troops concentrating near the border.
Since the operation began, there have been conflicting reports about who is in charge of Russia’s military response. Notionally, Valery Gerasimov – Russia’s beleaguered chief of the general staff – should be in command.
Yet, Putin called the response to Ukraine’s attack a “counter-terrorism operation”, which seemed to put it within the purview of Alexander Bortnikov, the head of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB). Still others claim Aleksey Dyumin, a Putin favorite sometimes touted as his eventual successor, has been given the responsibility.
The confusion over command has also revealed how weak the forces remaining inside Russia are. A cobbled-together combination of conscripts, Russian naval infantry, FSB troops and Rosgvardia (Putin’s personal national guard) has been unable to dislodge the highly mobile Ukrainian forces.
After securing the town of Sudzha, the Ukrainian troops have also been able to bring in supplies and reinforcements, further complicating the job of repelling them. With the majority of Russia’s regular army tied up in Ukraine, there has even been speculation Moscow will need to relocate troops from its Kaliningrad enclave in northern Europe to help.
Putting the pressure back on Moscow
Politically, Ukraine’s move is deeply embarrassing for Putin, who has already proven himself slow to react when facing similar challenges. Just over a year ago, Moscow’s dithering allowed Yevgeny Prigozhin’s rebel Wagner Group convoy to get within 200 kilometers of Moscow before an amnesty deal was brokered.
表單的底部
This time, Putin was forced to interrupt acting governor Alexey Smirnov during a televised meeting of defense officials, as he was delivering bad news about the depth of the Ukrainian incursion. After being curtly instructed to stick to discussing aid and relief efforts, Smirnoff promptly responded that around 180,000 Russians had been internally displaced.
Are these signs of fragility? Certainly, Russian refugees have directed significant anger at regional leaders and security forces in Kursk, some of whom seem to have been the first to flee. There are also reports of looting by Russian soldiers in the conflict zone. And there has also been criticism of Putin himself from Russians in the Kursk area.
In terms of regime stability, there are three potential outcomes.
One is that Ukraine’s incursion into Russian territory – which makes a lie of the Kremlin’s consistent leitmotif about keeping Russians safe – leads to a torrent of public anger that directly endangers Putin’s rule.
Second, Putin could turn the insult of Ukrainians capturing Russian soil into a rallying cry, uniting the population behind him.
The third option, however, might be most likely – the majority of Russians remain apathetic. There is still no real incentive for Kremlin elites to move against Putin, and popular outrage is likely to be confined to Kursk rather than the power centers of Moscow and St Petersburg.
Ultimately, Ukraine’s incursion into Russia goes beyond damaging Putin. It has boosted morale, shown up the Kremlin’s bluster and reminded the West that Ukraine matters. On all three measures, Kiev has once again proven itself remarkably resourceful.
Matthew Sussex is a Fellow of the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University. Sussex is the academic director at ANU’s National Security College, and his main research specialization is Russian foreign and security policy.
Read More：
Kursk could hasten Russia’s post-Putin political succession
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何以烏克蘭侵入俄國頗具意義 - Kate Murphy
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請參看本欄2024/08/10後多篇報導、分析、和評論。下文重點在「談判籌碼」和「瓦斯輸送管線」延伸出來的經濟利益。
請至原網頁查看地圖。
Zelensky claims Ukraine has taken control of the Russian town of Sudzha. How we got to this point in the war — and why the latest incursion is a big deal.
It's the first time foreign troops have entered Russia and held territory since World War II.
Kate Murphy, 08/17/24
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed this week that his country's troops took full control of a key Russian town, located about 6 miles away from the Ukrainian border, as troops continue to push farther into the Kursk region of Russia.
Sudzha, which has a population of about 5,000 people, is the largest Russian town to fall to Ukrainian forces since the launch of Ukraine’s large-scale offensive operation into Russian territory that caught them off guard last week.
Kyiv claimed earlier this week that about 386 square miles in the Kursk region have been seized by Ukraine, or what they say is about as much land Ukraine claimed in a week as Russia has claimed in a year.
Russian President Vladimir Putin blamed Ukraine’s allies for the recent incursion. "It appears that the enemy, with the support from their Western backers, is executing their directives, and the West is using Ukrainians as proxies in this conflict," he said during a national security meeting on Monday in Moscow.
What happened last week?
On Aug. 6, Ukraine launched a surprise incursion into the Kursk region, which borders northeastern Ukraine. It’s the most significant cross-border attack since Russia’s unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The Associated Press reported that Western military analysts believe that around 10,000 Ukrainian troops are involved.
Russian forces have struggled to push back the shocking Ukrainian advance, sparking chaos in the Kursk region that has led to the evacuation of more than 120,000 civilians, according to Russian authorities. Russia, meanwhile, has declared a federal emergency in the Kursk and Belgorod regions.
Ukraine claims to have captured hundreds of Russian prisoners that they want to swap for Ukrainian prisoners held by Russia; it also says it control more than 80 Russian settlements.
It marks the first time since World War II that foreign troops entered and held Russian territory.
Why did Ukraine do it?
Zelensky acknowledged for the first time on Aug. 10 that Kyiv’s military launched the incursion because they wanted to “push the war out into the aggressor's territory," ABC News reported.
"Ukraine is proving that it really knows how to restore justice and guarantees exactly the kind of pressure that is needed — pressure on the aggressor," he said.
Myhailo Podolyak, a top adviser to Zelensky, also suggested on Thursday that the offensive operation would help Kyiv have more negotiating power, if the opportunity presented itself with Moscow, such as taking Russian prisoners and controlling the key town of Sudzha.
Why is Sudzha important for Ukraine?
It comes down to valuable energy sources. Russia exports natural gas to Europe from its west Siberian gas fields by way of pipelines. Those pipelines pass through Sudzha, where a metering station is located, and crosses the Ukrainian border into Ukraine’s pipeline system, before then entering the European Union.
Yet, despite the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, natural gas has continued to flow from Russia by way of Ukraine to Europe. Ukraine essentially is able to collect transit fees. Ukrainian officials have said they have no plans to renew the deal with Russia.
As CNN reports, Ukraine’s control of Sudzha “has prompted speculation that one of Kyiv’s goals could be to curtail a lucrative source of funding for Moscow,” which could boost Ukraine’s bargaining chips in any future negotiations with Moscow.
What’s next?
White House national security spokesman John Kirby told CNN on Thursday that it looked like Russia was shifting some of its forces to the Kursk region. “It is apparent to us that Mr. Putin and the Russian military are diverting some resources, some units, towards the Kursk oblast to ostensibly counter what the Ukrainians are doing,” Kirby said.
Meanwhile, Ukraine has also set up a military office in the occupied area of the Kursk region as Ukrainian troops are advancing northwest and southeast of Sudzha, The Hill reported.
Read more on Russia’s war in Ukraine:
* Why is natural gas still flowing from Russia to Europe across Ukraine? [The Associated Press]
* Photos: A new front in the Ukraine-Russia war [Yahoo News]
* Kremlin accuses the West of helping Ukraine attack Russia [Reuters]
* Ukraine’s swift push into the Kursk region shocked Russia and exposed its vulnerabilities [AP]
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評論《烏軍攻入俄境有意義嗎？》
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0. 前言
我不是軍事家或國際關係學者，但行年80；豬肉雖然吃得不怎麼多，但豬圈內的豬倒是看過好幾隻。所以也來說道、說道「烏軍攻入俄境」這碼子事兒(請參見本欄上一篇)。
1. 《烏軍攻入俄境有意義嗎？》讀後
1.1 立論前提
我很早就指出：俄軍具有兵員上的絕對優勢；我也曾指出兵力不足是烏軍的致命傷。相信學歷在研究所水準以上的人，都了解這一點。10位學者自然也全部以它為論述「前提」。
就討論「烏軍攻入俄境」而言，應該考慮的是：烏軍將領難道不清楚這一點嗎？
根據本欄2024/08/16的報導，這次烏軍「逆襲」不論「精心」與否，至少它是長時間和周密策畫後的決定。
以過去戰場上兩年半來的情況來看，我們需要高度肯定烏國領袖層和烏軍將領們在戰略/戰術方面的智慧與部署。這10位學者中有一半以上的人，把他/她們看成是一堆村夫和/或莽漢。從而，在我看來，這些學者們有某種「認知偏差」；其分析也就不到位，難稱周全細膩。
這和2022年俄軍入侵前，幾乎沒有人看好烏克蘭，絕大多數學者/名嘴/自媒體網紅一致認為基輔「指日可下」，同樣的愚蠢和可笑。
1.2 內容概論
比起其他幾位，拓芙特教授和拉特蘭教授的觀點說得上有兩把刷子。
10位學者中的多數人指出：烏克蘭領導人「攻入俄境」的目的在「逼和」，或增加討價還價的「籌碼」。另一方面， 麥拉教授指出：烏克蘭領導人的目的可能在「維持現狀」；他的分析堪稱獨樹一幟。此推論成立的前提是：烏克蘭領導人自認為可以在短時間內拖垮普丁政權。我認為這個「假設」過於「大膽」，不切實際。當然，在只能從網路得到二手、三手、乃至於假訊息的情況下，我並沒有鐵口直斷的身份和能力。
沃爾特教授和米爾先梅教授的立場，可能近於「國內優先論」，導致兩位的國際政策傾向「自掃門前雪」。他們唱衰烏軍攻入俄境，不足為奇。其目的在鼓吹美國領導人及早「停損」；這是只求眼前之利的短線操作。兩位見識和格局之淺薄，也就躍然紙上。米爾先梅教授雖然名氣甚高，但我難以理解，他毫不掩飾其偏頗和自以為是之文風的底氣，到底從何而來？
最後，沃爾特教授拿數字對比來支持他的論調，看起來頭頭是道，可圈可點。但是，如果回到2022年初，用同樣的邏輯，他會得到當時普大大得到的結論：
俄國三個月以內能夠「光復」烏克蘭。
10個「三個月」之後，烏克蘭不但沒有「被光復」，她還能反攻，還能侵入俄國。沃爾特教授的邏輯和普大大的「正當性」，同時泡湯。
2. 評論
2.1 立論立場
我支持任何「自衛型」戰爭，反對任何侵犯它國主權與領土的行動。這當然會影響到我對俄、烏戰局的判斷。合先敘明。
2.2 烏克蘭的政略考量
在此重複我第一時間看到此報導的反應(本欄2024/08/10)：
「孤注一擲乎？鋌而走險乎？總之，政略意義大於戰略。」
對烏國人民和士兵來說，這句話中的「政略」蘊含拓芙特教授提及的「心理層面」。
「兵員」和「裝備」有其關鍵性的重要，殆無疑義。但從戰爭史看，它們並不是決定勝敗的兩個「必要因素」。「以少勝多」和「以弱勝強」雖然不是常態，在統計上也絕非「幾等於零」。我接受「唯物論」，我同時也了解人有基於物質的「意志」和「行動能力」。後二者就是通稱的「心理因素」。
討論政治或戰爭而不考慮人做為行動者的「心理層面」，那就只能用一個「蠢」字來形容。
2.3 烏克蘭的戰略考量
烏軍將領真的是「孤注一擲」或「鋌而走險」嗎？值得進一步分析。
只從人口、國力、兵員、和土地面積這些面向來評估，普丁當初「三個月內『光復』烏克蘭」的想法不算離譜。就我所知，他沒有考慮到的因素有四個：
a. 2014年以後烏克蘭全國的厲兵秣馬和「恃吾有以待之」；
b. 烏國人民的意志；
c. 烏國人民的向心力；
d. 美國和北約諸國唇亡齒寒的認知與同仇敵愾的共識。
兩年半以後，前三個因素應該銷磨殆盡，難以為繼。烏克蘭高層知道：這個仗要打下去，勢必依賴第四個因素的槓桿作用。
說不定，10月中冬季來臨前，烏軍移師白俄羅斯或其它俄國省份。普丁能夠見招拆招一個「入侵」，他能化解第二個、第三個？能不能我不知道，但是我相信他不敢，也就不能冒這個險。站在普丁的立場和使用他的邏輯，要解除第二個「庫斯克丟臉」的方法是：全面進攻，把烏克蘭打得棄甲曳兵，沒有招架之力。
我認為，這很可能就是烏克蘭高層的陽謀。
種種跡象顯示，無論明年誰入主白宮，北約諸國就是要把美國老大哥拖下水來自保。一旦俄軍兵臨基輔城下，波蘭、法國、和芬蘭應該是前三個「兵援」烏克蘭的國家(請參見本欄2024/04/27貼文)。到時候美國沒有「袖手旁觀」這個選項。
在「議和」之外，現代第三次「歐戰」是解決「烏克蘭問題」的方法之一。
當然，普丁能混到今天也不是蓋的。這盤棋怎麼下，有待日後分解。
本文於 修改第 9 次
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烏軍攻入俄境有意義嗎？ ---- Jasen J. Castillo等
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請參見下一篇《評論》。
Symposium: What does Ukraine's incursion into Russia really mean?
Ten experts gauge the short and long term effects of Kyiv’s bold invasion on the war
Responsible Statecraft, 08/15/24
Beginning Aug. 6, the Ukrainian military launched a surprise, cross-border offensive against Russia in the eastern Kursk region, seemingly flipping the script on the war’s current trajectory.
Kyiv claims its units have pushed more than 20 miles into Russian territory, taking over 74 settlements and towns encompassing some 400 square miles, as well as over 100 Russian prisoners of war.
For its part, Moscow has acknowledged the incursion but as of Wednesday said its military has stabilized the border and is actively fighting to wrest control over those contested areas. Meanwhile, the fog of war has settled in and there is no official confirmation on the number of casualties or actual territorial gains by Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has denounced the incursion as a “large-scale provocation.” For its part the Ukraine Foreign Ministry is saying this isn’t about holding territory but stopping long-range missile strikes by Russia into Ukraine from the Kursk region by creating a “buffer zone” there.
So many questions remain about the Ukrainian strategy, the Russian response and what long term impact this may have — or not — on the overall war, including the potential for future negotiations, the effect on morale on both sides, and whether this emboldens Ukraine’s supporters, including the U.S., to help re-energize what was looking like a foundering war effort on the Ukrainian side.
So we put the following question to a well-rounded group of foreign policy experts:
"What is the likely impact of current Ukrainian military incursions into the Russian Kursk region on the broader Ukraine War?"
Jasen J. Castillo, Monica Duffy Toft, Ivan Eland, Mark Episkopos, Lyle Goldstein, John Mearsheimer, Sumantra Maitra, Rajan Menon, Peter Rutland, Stephen Walt
Jasen J. Castillo, Co-Director, Albritton Center for Grand Strategy, George H.W. Bush School of Government, Texas A&M University
Once again, Ukraine's armed forces have demonstrated their tremendous will to fight, something Russia discounted when they invaded in 2022. Nevertheless, the military objective of this offensive remains unclear. In the short term, this is a public relations boost for Ukraine and a morale blow to Russia. The Kursk gamble might also reduce pressure on Ukraine's defenses as Russia moves forces to stop the incursion. My worry is that in the longer term, Ukraine, which is facing dangerous shortfalls in manpower and equipment, will deplete elite units that would have been needed elsewhere. In a war of attrition, manpower and equipment are essential. Ukraine's attack reminds me of Germany's audacious Western offensive in 1944 that surprised the Allies, made gains, and ended with a defeat at the Battle of the Bulge, which then wasted manpower and equipment it needed months later on the Eastern Front.
Monica Duffy Toft, Professor of International Politics and Director of the Center for Strategic Studies at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.
The likely impact of Ukraine’s military incursion into Russia is going to affect two axes of interest; one material, and one psychological.
On the material axis, Ukraine may be able to temporarily degrade Russia’s ability to launch missile attacks against Ukrainian targets, the most sensitive of which involve the deliberate and systematic harm of Ukraine’s noncombatants. But in material terms, not much can be expected in terms of lasting impact. Ukraine will be forced to retreat from Russia, and its surviving troops and equipment will be redistributed, after rest and refit, to other critical areas of Ukraine’s front with Russia.
It is on the psychological axis we can expect the most impact. Already, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s legitimacy as a “great leader” was damaged in the opening weeks of the war. This latest incursion is worse, because no Russian leader can afford to preside over the loss of Russian territory, even temporarily, and survive with reputation intact.
That said, Putin has unprecedented control over what Russians learn about the war. The psychological impact will be most felt by Ukraine and its allies. It will alleviate attention fatigue in the global sphere. It also reminds Western donors that Ukraine can fight and win, so the ongoing sacrifice of sending weapons and ammunition will not be wasted.
Ivan Eland, Director of the Independent Institute’s Center on Peace & Liberty.
Although Ukraine has insisted that its intent is not to hold captured land in Russia, one might then ask what purpose the incursion serves. It may have been designed to shock Russian leader Vladimir Putin about Russia’s vulnerability, but prior raids or attacks on Russia and Crimea have already so demonstrated.
Conducting offensive operations is usually much more costly in personnel and equipment than being on defense, so is it worth it for Ukraine to divert forces from already thin defense lines to go on a risky offensive with only nebulous benefits? Russia’s offensive is already making headway, and because Russia outnumbers and outguns Ukraine, it may not need to denude its attack forces in Ukraine to defend Russian territory. Ukraine indeed may desire to occupy Russian territory to eventually trade Ukrainian-occupied Russian territory for Russian-occupied Ukrainian land in any truce negotiations, but Ukraine risks being surrounded by superior forces.
Mark Episkopos, Eurasia Research Fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and Adjunct Professor of History at Marymount University
表單的底部
The Kursk incursion seems to have been premised on the assumption that Ukraine can exploit Russia’s thinly manned border defenses to seize large swathes of land — including the Kursk nuclear power plant — in the first 48-72 hours, presenting Moscow with a fait accompli that can be used as a bargaining chip to quickly force a ceasefire and potentially even set the stage for peace talks on Ukraine’s terms. But Russia appears to have thwarted the AFU’s attempts to significantly expand its initial beachhead, and Ukraine lacks the long-term capacity to hold even the modest territory that it is currently contesting.
Efforts to keep open the Kursk pocket are unlikely to yield any strategic benefits for Ukraine and will demand a massive sustained investment of troops and equipment that may weaken Ukrainian defenses, inadvertently creating opportunities for Russian forces along the lines of contact in Ukraine’s Donbas region.
Lyle Goldstein, Director of Asia Development, Defense Priorities, and visiting Professor at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University
Kyiv’s brazen offensive into Russia’s Kursk region illustrates that Ukraine still has significant combat capability, as well as some measure of fighting pluck. No doubt the operation has served its primary end to embarrass the Kremlin and so dramatically alter the conventional narrative on the war. Still, legitimate questions can be asked regarding the wisdom of the new offensive. Casualties for the attacking side are inevitably high, especially in circumstances when Russia retains a substantial firepower advantage. This may, in turn, create grave weaknesses on other part of the battle line that Russian forces could exploit. Most informed American strategists had been counseling Ukraine in 2024 to stay on the defensive to preserve its forces and thus adopt a “long war” strategy. Nor is it clear that such a symbolic gambit will make a peace easier to negotiate. Finally, this is yet another step in the inadvisable direction of general escalation.
John Mearsheimer, R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago, and non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute
Ukraine’s invasion (of Kursk) was a major strategic blunder, which will accelerate its defeat. The key determinant of success in a war of attrition is the casualty-exchange ratio, not capturing territory, which Western commentators obsess over. The casualty-exchange ratio in the Kursk offensive decisively favors Russia for two reasons. First, it has caused relatively few Russian casualties because Ukraine’s army effectively overran undefended territory. Second, once alerted to the attack, Moscow quickly brought massive airpower to bear against the advancing Ukrainian troops, who were in the open and easy to strike. Unsurprisingly, the attacking forces lost many soldiers and a huge proportion of their equipment.
To make matters worse, Kyiv removed top-notch combat units from the front lines in eastern Ukraine — where they are desperately needed — and made them part of the Kursk strike force. This move is tilting the already lopsided casualty-exchange ratio on that critically important front further in Russia’s favor. It is no wonder — given what a foolish idea the Kursk incursion is — that the Russians were caught by surprise.
Sumantra Maitra, Director of research and outreach, the American Ideas Institute, author of “Sources of Russian Aggression”
If Ukraine taking the war to Russia was to bring Russia to negotiate from a position of weakness, it will fail, simply because Ukrainians don't have the manpower to sustain this push and subsequent occupation. It is a good PR victory for Ukrainian backers in the West, and it shows how catastrophically backward, incompetent, and Soviet, Russian strategic thinking still is, but the Russian advantage in numbers will remain.
What it also might do is harden the Russian position, embolden the hardliners in the Russian government, and dissuade Putin from pushing for any negotiations for peace, especially after a new administration is elected in the U.S. Which, maybe, was the actual aim of the Ukrainian government, or whoever is advising them. In scuttling that particular process, Ukraine has been successful.
Rajan Menon, non-resident senior fellow at Defense Priorities and the Anne and Bernard Spitzer Chair Emeritus in International Relations at the Powell School, City College of New York/City University of New York.
Ukraine’s Kursk gambit has been widely praised — appropriately. But its enduring success remains uncertain. Whether Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi seeks to retain Russian territory to trade in future negotiations; to divert Russian forces from the Donetsk battlefields, where they have been advancing; or to make Russians feel some of the pain Ukrainians have since 2022, his ability to achieve one or more of these goals remains uncertain.
Once Russia mounts a persistent counterattack, will Ukraine muster the logistical capabilities, troop numbers, firepower, and air defenses required to sustain its soldiers in Kursk? Will Russia be forced to redeploy forces from Donetsk (so far it has used reserves and troops from the Kharkiv and Kupiansk fronts)? Or will Russia foil Ukraine’s Kursk offensive, transforming the current euphoria into a blame-game in which Ukraine’s leaders are attacked for dispatching to Kursk troops that were badly needed elsewhere? It’s too early to tell.
Peter Rutland, professor of government and the Colin and Nancy Campbell Chair for Global Issues and Democratic Thought at Wesleyan University
The Ukrainian incursion is the most significant challenge to face Putin since the Wagner mutiny of June 2023. It highlights one of the central claims of Evgeny Prigozhin — the corruption and incompetence of the Russian army's commanders, who did not foresee the attack, and who have been slow to expel the Ukrainian invaders. It refutes some of the central themes in Kremlin propaganda — that Russia is winning the war, that Putin is protecting Russians from a hostile world. It has also called the bluff on Putin's threats to use nuclear weapons in the event of escalation of the fighting onto Russian territory. Irrespective of the military costs and benefits of the raid, there is no doubt that it has been a political coup for Kyiv.
Stephen Walt, Robert and Renee Belfer Professor of International Affairs, Yale University
The Ukrainian incursion into Russia is a sideshow intended to bolster Ukrainian morale and give the West confidence to keep backing Kyiv, but it will not affect the outcome of the war. Ukrainian forces have reportedly seized about 1000 square kilometers of poorly defended Russian territory. Russia’s total land mass is more than 17 million square kilometers, which means that Ukraine now “controls” 0.00588% of Russia.
By comparison, Russian forces currently occupy roughly 20 percent of Ukraine and the failed Ukrainian offensive last summer shows how difficult it will be for Ukraine to retake these areas. The incursion may be a minor embarrassment for Putin (as well as additional evidence that Russia is far too weak to invade the rest of Europe), but Ukraine’s fate will be determined by what happens in Ukraine, and not by this operation.
Responsible Statecraft is a publication of analysis, opinion, and news that seeks to promote a positive vision of U.S. foreign policy based on humility, diplomatic engagement, and military restraint. RS also critiques the ideas — and the ideologies and interests behind them — that have mired the United States in counterproductive and endless wars and made the world less secure.
The views expressed by authors on Responsible Statecraft do not necessarily reflect those of the Quincy Institute or its associates.
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烏克蘭攻入俄境之欺敵夠夠 -- Kim Barker等
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請至原網頁查看相關圖片與視頻。
Deception and a Gamble: How Ukrainian Troops Invaded Russia
Planned in secrecy, the incursion was a bold move to upend the war’s dynamics and put Moscow on the defensive — a gambit that could also leave Ukraine exposed.
Kim Barker/Anton Troianovski/Andrew E. Kramer/Constant Méheut/Alina Lobzina/Eric Schmitt/Sanjana Varghese, 08/14/24
The scenes were decidedly Russian. A Gazprom facility. Flags with the country’s signature three horizontal stripes of white, blue and red. A Pyatyorochka supermarket.
The soldiers posting the videos, verified by The New York Times, were Ukrainian, almost giddily showing off just how easily they had pushed over the border and through Russian lines of defense in the past week.
In the Russian town of Sverdlikovo, a Ukrainian soldier climbed onto another’s shoulders, broke off the wooden post anchored to a town council building and threw the Russian flag to the ground. In Daryino, a town five miles to the west, other soldiers also grabbed a Russian flag. “Just throw it away,” a Ukrainian soldier said, grinning, as another flexed his muscles.
On Aug. 6, Ukraine launched an audacious military offensive, planned and executed in secrecy, with the aim of upending the dynamics of a war it has appeared to be losing, town by town, as Russian troops have ground forward in the east. The operation surprised even Kyiv’s closest allies, including the United States, and has pushed the limits of how Western military equipment would be permitted to be used inside Russian territory.
For Russia, it was a moment nearly as shocking as the mercenary Yevgeny V. Prigozhin’s march on Moscow in June 2023: the vaunted security state that President Vladimir V. Putin had built crumbled in the face of the surprise attack, failing in its basic task of protecting its citizens. And the unwritten social contract that has largely accompanied Mr. Putin’s 30-month campaign — that most Russians could get on with their normal lives even as he waged war — was cast into question anew.
Mostly on the defensive since a failed counteroffensive last year, Ukraine has pushed seven miles into Russia along a 25-mile front and taken dozens of Russian soldiers as prisoners, analysts and Russian officials say. The governor of Russia’s Kursk region said on Monday that Ukraine controls 28 towns and villages there. More than 132,000 people have been evacuated from nearby areas, Russian officials said.
“Russia brought war to others, and now it is coming home,” President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said in his Monday night address.
This offensive is a major gamble, especially since Russia dominates much of the frontline in Ukraine and has made significant inroads in the east. If Ukrainian troops are able to hold territory, they could stretch the capacity of Russian troops, deliver a major embarrassment for Mr. Putin and get a bargaining chip for any peace negotiations. But if Russia manages to push Ukrainian troops out of Kursk and simultaneously move forward in eastern Ukraine, Ukrainian military leaders could be blamed for giving the Russians an opening to gain more ground, particularly in the Donetsk region.
U.S. officials told The Times they were given no formal heads-up about the high-risk mission — possibly because Ukrainian officials feared the Americans would try to persuade Ukraine to call it off, possibly because of Ukraine’s obsessive concern over leaks. Ukraine was also using American-supplied vehicles, arms and munitions, despite President Biden’s caution in May that Ukraine could only use American-made weapons inside Russia for limited self-defense strikes.
U.S. officials have said that Ukraine’s cross-border offensive didn’t violate that policy. “They are taking actions to protect themselves from attacks,” Sabrina Singh, the Pentagon’s deputy press secretary, said on Thursday.
Ukrainian officials have remained tight-lipped about the mission, including whether they intend to hold ground or fall back to defenses on their side of the border. Mr. Zelensky only acknowledged the operation publicly for the first time on Saturday. Ukrainian soldiers said they didn’t know the plan in advance. Military analysts who spend their days tracking the war said they were surprised.
“This is a good example of how a modern successful operation requires extreme operational security measures and deception,” said Pasi Paroinen, an analyst from the Black Bird Group, a Finland-based organization that analyzes battlefield footage. He added that if analysts couldn’t detect it, the Russians might not be able to either.
A quiet buildup
There were hints of what was to come.
Maps of the battlefield compiled by independent analysts show that soldiers from brigades long fighting in the east had moved discreetly into Ukraine’s Sumy region, just across the border from Kursk. A drone battalion from the 22nd Mechanized Brigade, which for nearly a year had defended the beleaguered frontline town of Chasiv Yar, was spotted near the border in mid-July. Troops from the 82nd Air Assault Brigade, engaged in fierce combat near Vovchansk in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, also shifted to the area. So did soldiers from the 80th Air Assault Brigade, which was at the forefront of fighting in the Kharkiv region this spring.
A few Russians noticed. A report was submitted to Russian military leadership about a month before the attack saying that “forces had been detected and that intelligence indicated preparations for an attack,” Andrei Gurulyov, a prominent member of Russia’s Parliament and a former high-ranking army officer, said after the incursion.
“But from the top came the order not to panic, and that those above know better,” Mr. Gurulyov lamented on national television.
Any movement could have been misconstrued as a new defensive posture. The Ukrainian Army sometimes splits brigades into smaller battalions scattered across the battlefield, and Sumy has long been rumored as a place where Russia might try opening a new front.
Few expected Ukraine to be able to launch a new offensive. Ukrainian brigades were running low on ammunition. Even as new weapons started arriving this spring and summer from the West, an almost fatalistic mood had taken hold of many Ukrainians, that they were losing ground in the east, foot by foot.
Ukraine shuffled parts of brigades into the Sumy area under the pretenses of training and picking up new equipment, said one brigade’s deputy commander, Lt. Col. Artem, who asked to be identified only by his first name and rank, in keeping with military protocol.
Heavy weaponry moved in. Soldiers piled into houses. The Ukrainians hid in plain sight. Officers were told to avoid wearing military uniforms when entering towns and cities so they didn’t draw attention, said one officer, who identified himself by his call sign, “Tykhyi,” in keeping with military protocol.
Some residents noticed the buildup. “Maybe they were reinforcing the border, or maybe building something?” said Elena Sima, the head of the Yunakivka district, about five miles from the border. “Everybody was guessing.”
In the village of Khotyn, the rumble of heavy, tracked vehicles woke up Natalya Vyalina, a 44-year-old kindergarten teacher, several nights in a row. She assumed others heard it, too. But in the village, she said, “nobody said anything.”
Even within the army, many were kept in the dark. Tykhyi — which means “quiet one” in Ukrainian — said some units were told of their mission only at the last moment.
On Aug. 3, Colonel Artem said, his brigade commander summoned senior officers to a meeting on the side of a forest road to announce the mission’s goals. To divert Russian troops to help fellow soldiers fighting in the eastern Donbas region. To push Russian artillery out of range of Sumy. To demoralize the Russians by showing their intelligence and planning failures.
‘Difficult challenges ahead’
The Ukrainian military hadn’t tried a serious push into Russia since the beginning of Moscow’s full-scale invasion in 2022. Commandos had made quick forays across the border, one in May 2023 and another this March. They were claimed by two shadowy paramilitary groups with ties to Ukraine: the Russian Volunteer Corps and the Freedom of Russia Legion.
Away from the fighting, the Kursk region posed an easier target than elsewhere along the 600-mile front in the east and south of Ukraine. It had fewer anti-armored vehicle ditches, fewer of the anti-tank pyramid obstacles known as dragon’s teeth and fewer manned fighting positions, said Brady Africk, an American analyst who maps Russia’s defenses. Russia also appeared to have sown fewer mines in the Kursk region than in occupied Ukrainian territories.
“Russia’s fortifications in Kursk are less dense than in other areas where Russian forces have built formidable defenses, such as in the south,” Mr. Africk said.
Just before noon on Aug. 6, Russian authorities claimed about 300 soldiers, more than 20 armored combat vehicles and 11 tanks from Ukraine’s 22nd Mechanized Brigade had crossed into the country. But those initial reports were greeted with a shrug. Disinformation and propaganda have become another kind of front in this war, and no one thought such an incursion made any tactical sense.
Hundreds more Ukrainian forces surged forward, breaching border checkpoints and pushing through two lines of defense. With fewer mines and fewer anti-military obstacles, Ukrainian mechanized brigades moved quickly.
Oleksandr, a Ukrainian infantry soldier who declined to give his last name, citing military security protocols, said many Russian soldiers fled as the Ukrainians pushed forward. Eight Russian soldiers surrendered at one checkpoint, he added.
Early Wednesday, senior U.S. officials woke up to a shock: They learned that more than 1,000 regular Ukrainian Army forces had crossed the border the day before, equipped with mobile air defenses and electronic-warfare equipment to jam Russian radar. Some were driving in armored vehicles sent by Germany and the United States. The soldiers appeared to be planning for an extended fight.
As late as Thursday, U.S. officials said, they were still seeking clarity from Ukrainian officials on the operation’s logic and rationale. Since then, Ukrainian leaders have briefed senior U.S. civilian officials and top military commanders on their goals.
The American officials said they were surprised at how well the operation has gone so far, but were skeptical that the Ukrainians could hold onto their gains. And in making the incursion, they said, Ukraine has created new vulnerabilities along the front where its forces are already stretched thin.
Videos show Ukrainian forces may have faced resistance at times, although there is not visual evidence of widespread losses.
Outside the Russian village of Kremyanoye, a video filmed by a Russian soldier shows Russian soldiers ransacking a captured Ukrainian armored vehicle, and taking away what appeared to be ammunition and other supplies. In another video filmed a few hundred meters away, a Russian soldier tried to rip a Ukrainian flag patch from the uniform of a dead soldier lying in the grass. Other footage, posted on Telegram by Russia’s Ministry of Defense, appeared to show Russian forces firing on a Ukrainian brigade around the Kursk region.
“We all have joy in our hearts,” the Ukrainian soldier, Oleksandr, said in a phone interview at 5 p.m. on Thursday, from somewhere inside Russia. “But we realize that there are still difficult challenges ahead.”
Some Ukrainian troops haven’t been able to stop themselves from publicizing their moves. They’ve posted videos and selfies from Russian towns like Sudzha or villages like Poroz and Dmitriukov, bragging about how they have finally taken the fight to Russia.
Outside a Pyatyorochka store in Sudzha, about six miles from the Russian border, one Ukrainian soldier said that a Ukrainian supermarket chain, ATB, was much better. “Glory to Ukraine,” he said in a video, which like others were verified by The Times. “No Pyatyorochka, ATB will be here soon.”
Four Ukrainian soldiers posed outside a nearby Gazprom facility, the Russian state-owned gas monopoly.
“From Sudzha, our news is as follows: The town is controlled by the armed forces of Ukraine,” one said, holding a rifle and standing in front of three soldiers brandishing a blue-and-yellow Ukrainian flag. “Peace in the town. All houses are intact.” He added: “I wish everyone a peaceful sky.”
One video filmed by Ukrainian forces showed Ukrainian armored vehicles gliding along roads and through open fields in the Kursk region. Another showed a convoy of a dozen or so burned Russian vehicle husks near the town of Rylsk, some 20 miles inside Russian territory. Bodies could be seen in the back of some trucks.
About three days after the incursion began, a Ukrainian strike destroyed an apparent munitions depot at Russia’s Lipetsk military airfield in the neighboring region.
Whether or not the strike was directly related to the ground advance, “Ukraine’s Kursk campaign de facto benefits,” said George Barros, an analyst with the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War.
A haphazard evacuation
For Russians near the border, the incursion arrived with loud booms. Roman, 49, a government worker who insisted on anonymity because he feared repercussions for speaking to a Western news outlet, said shelling woke him at 3:30 a.m. in his village outside Sudzha on Aug. 6, the first day of Ukraine’s incursion.
The next day, he and his wife drove to Kursk, the regional capital, because they knew their daughter’s school wouldn’t soon reopen. That night, they returned to evacuate their parents. They drove on side roads with their headlights off, stopping repeatedly to listen for drones.
Roman said people inundated him with requests for help reaching their relatives. He and others said the incursion appeared to have come as such a shock to the authorities that residents had to rely on each other.
A Sudzha resident named Ivan, 34, said in a text exchange Thursday that he was trying to evacuate residents. Later in the day, he wrote that he was in the hospital. His car had been hit by shelling while leaving Sudzha, home to around 6,000 people. And he had learned that the coffee shop where he worked had been damaged in the fighting.
“We’ve all been ditched,” Ivan said, also insisting on anonymity. “People are helping with whatever they can. The government doesn’t care.”
On Monday, the governor of Kursk said more than 100 civilians had been injured and a dozen killed, although the figures could not be independently verified.
The Times reviewed several satellite images captured since Aug. 6 that showed at least two dozen structures were damaged or destroyed in Sudzha and a neighboring village, Goncharovka, including homes, an apartment building, a gas station and support buildings of an arts school.
As the incursion expanded, the city of Kursk — whose name evokes for many Russians the enormous World War II tank battle nearby in which the Soviets stopped the German advance — filled with people fleeing the fighting. They lined up for help at aid centers set up by charity groups, Yan S. Furtsev, 38, an independent political activist in the city, said in an interview.
Nerves were frayed, he said, by shaky cellphone service and incessant air-raid warnings. Buses stopped when the sirens sounded. Those who couldn’t afford taxis were walking to work or relying on strangers for rides.
Whether the incursion would change people’s views on the war was another matter. On state television, the Kremlin played down the significance of the offensive, rather than casting it as a consequence of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“There are a lot of different opinions” about the war, Mr. Furtsev said. “But as for what people think, everyone believes that this is a tragedy.”
Michael Schwirtz, Adam Entous, Dzvinka Pinchuk, Evelina Riabenko, Aric Toler, Christoph Koettl contributed reporting. Axel Boada contributed video production.
Kim Barker is a Times reporter writing in-depth stories about national issues. More about Kim Barker
Anton Troianovski is the Moscow bureau chief for The Times. He writes about Russia, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia. More about Anton Troianovski
Andrew E. Kramer is the Kyiv bureau chief for The Times, who has been covering the war in Ukraine since 2014. More about Andrew E. Kramer
Constant Méheut reports on the war in Ukraine, including battlefield developments, attacks on civilian centers and how the war is affecting its people. More about Constant Méheut
Eric Schmitt is a national security correspondent for The Times, focusing on U.S. military affairs and counterterrorism issues overseas, topics he has reported on for more than three decades. More about Eric Schmitt
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烏克蘭地面部隊入侵俄國本土 - Nick Paton Walsh
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孤注一擲乎？鋌而走險乎？總之，政略意義大於戰略。
Why Ukraine’s generals may have rolled the dice on an incursion into Russia
Analysis by Nick Paton Walsh, CNN, 08/08/24
(CNN) -- Kyiv needed a win, but not a gamble.
Ukraine’s decision to launch a large amount of its scant military resources across the border into Russia - in pursuit of headlines but, thus far, an unclear strategic objective – marks a moment of either desperation or inspiration for Ukraine. And it does perhaps herald a new phase of the war.
Not because incursions into Russia by Ukraine are somehow new – they have been happening for over a year, mostly by Russian citizens, fighting for Ukraine with obvious Ukrainian military assistance but no official, public role.
It feels new because this is, according to Russia at least, the regular Ukrainian army mounting an attack on Russia, and a rare roll of the dice by a Ukrainian top brass whose movements have been criticized mostly in the last 18 months as being too slow and conservative.
On Tuesday, Kyiv took badly needed resources and fresh troops and launched them well inside Russia. The immediate effect satisfied two needs: a headline that involved Russian embarrassment and Ukrainian forward motion, and another that Moscow’s troops should scatter to reinforce their borders. After weeks of bad news for Kyiv, in which Russian forces have slowly but inexorably moved towards the Ukrainian military hubs of Pokrovsk and Sloviansk, Moscow is left scrambling to shore up its most essential front line – its own border.
But even as Kyiv declined to say anything Wednesday about what Russian President Vladimir Putin had called a “major provocation,” the wisdom of this gamble was openly questioned by some Ukrainian observers.
There may be a larger strategy at play here. Sudzha, now at least partially under Ukrainian control, is next to a Russian gas terminal, right on the border, which is key to supplying gas from Russia, via Ukraine, to Europe. That arrangement is said to close end in January, and this may be a bid to curtail a lucrative source of funding for Moscow that has angered Kyiv since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in 2022. (As of Thursday, there were no public indications of gas supplies being affected).
Yet until the wider importance of this incursion emerges, there remains a huge question mark over the strategic goals of Oleksandr Syrskyi, the comparatively new commander of Ukraine’s forces. Splits in his command have simmered into public view recently, with younger subordinates questioning Syrskyi’s willingness to endure significant casualties in frontline battles of attrition, in which Russia’s superior manpower usually prevails.
It is a Soviet mindset, and Syrskyi is from that era. But those dying or returning home as amputees are often from a younger generation who value dexterity and guile perhaps more than brute persistence.
Ukraine has for months exceled at targeting – often with what appears to be Western help – Russia’s internal infrastructure, chewing up runways, naval bases, and oil terminals in a bid to cause long-term damage to Moscow’s economy and war machine. But this is different: It is sending a large ground force miles into enemy territory, where Ukrainian supply lines are more fraught and objectives are by definition tougher to pursue.
The move comes at a time when the Ukrainian effort has begun to see a concrete benefit from Western weapons finally arriving.
F-16 fighter jets are new to the front lines but may be able to dent Russia’s withering air supremacy in the coming months. That could mean fewer gliding bombs hitting Ukrainian frontline troops and fewer missiles terrorizing Ukraine’s urban communities. Ammunition remains a problem for Kyiv, according to some accounts, but surely Western supplies may eventually plug that gap.
So why this high-risk move now? If we look beyond the immediate positive news cycle for President Volodymyr Zelensky, other goals emerge. For the first time in the war, talk of talks has begun. Russia may be invited to attend the next peace conference held by Ukraine and its allies. The proportion of Ukrainians who approve of negotiations, while a minority, is marginally growing. And the possibility of a Trump presidency is glowering above Kyiv.
US Vice President Kamala Harris may retain the same steadfastness as President Joe Biden over Ukraine. But it is important to remember that Western foreign policy is a fickle and easily exhausted beast. NATO’s persistent backing for Ukraine is an outlier. And as the war edges towards its fourth year, questions about how this ends will grow louder.
Is there any real merit to Ukraine fighting and dying with no real prospect of retaking occupied territory from Moscow? Does Russia want an indefinite grind forward, in which it loses thousands of men for hundreds of yards’ advance, and sees its wider military capability slowly worn down by longer-range Ukrainian strikes?
With the prospect of a negotiated settlement now less distant, both sides will scramble to improve their battlefield position before sitting down at the table. It is unclear if Ukraine’s move into Kursk is motivated by that, or a simple move to inflict damage where the enemy is weak.
But it marks a rare and substantial gamble with Kyiv’s limited resources, and so may herald the Ukrainians’ belief that greater change is ahead.
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