Day 898
War-adjacent content milling
The two blue blobs near Sudzha in Russia’s Kursk region represent areas now occupied by the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Thousands of miles from the scattershot manipulative bombast of some media dispatches123, the quiet August night filmed from smartphones near Rylsk and Lipetsk manages somehow to convey firsthand experience and weave an exciting new narrative, providing us with some of the most pleasing video clips of recent memory, without tits.
Holy fuck!
There is gunfire.
(Woman in the back seat) Gunfire?
Ammunition is detonating.
Screw it. Turn around.
At least one Russian military column en route to quash Ukraine’s incursion in Russia’s Kursk region was incinerated.
Hours later, the scene near one bombed-out military column near Rylsk:
Meanwhile, about 450 kilometers northeast, the military airport in Lipetsk was, er, obliterated.
Oy, Oy, Oy, Oy…
The airport.
Ukraine expert Melinda provides analysis.
What Melinda wanted to say, but didn’t, is that the unexpected offensive near Kursk is not about square kilometers, but about the future of war. Based on its results, approaches to peace plans, military and financial aid to Ukraine (on the other hand, military-technical aid to Russia) will be measured. Perhaps this is one of the most important battles of the 2023-2024 campaign in terms of its political significance, surpassing in its consequences everything in the Pokrovsk axis. It’s not a tactical ploy, but a strategic (in the political, not purely military sense) enterprise.
Those who haven’t yet seen the sequel to Invaders Must Die and who, like me, figured that some sort of military malaise was inevitable – Ukraine couldn’t possibly sustain its active defense posture quite so cruelly on the nose near Pokrovsk4 – will, I expect, be filled with grim joy to discover that the second season of fascistic Russia’s genocidal war will be approximately two hundred percent meaner, darker and bloodier than the first, and that the queasy mix of loathing and disbelief one has for the aggressors is just, like, way more.
Team Russia has come upon a problem similar to the one facing the Third Reich that ultimately led to its swift and total defeat. It’s a combination of haughty ego, strategic blunders and the refusal to adapt to the changing realities of the war.
Ukraine Launches Rare Cross-Border Ground Assault Into Russia. Troops and armored fighting vehicles crossed into Russia’s western Kursk region on Tuesday, according to Moscow and independent analysts. Ukrainian officials have not commented (The New York Times, August 7, 2024)
Ukraine, powered by Western arms, stuns Russia in cross-border assault. A surprise incursion into Kursk appeared to use U.S. and European armored vehicles. Washington offered no objections to the operation (The Washington Post, August 8, 2024)
So happy to see Russia getting a taste of what Ukraine has been putting up with for the last (nearly) 900 days.
hi, vaughan. the stakes for both ukraine and russia are higher here than it might seem at first glance. the ease with which the knife of the afu entered the butter of the russian defense on a fresh section of the front could be misleadering. the kremlin understands the importance of a "response," and it will follow soon. this is where the experiment begins: we will see in practice whether team russia has something to respond with (leaving aside the topic of tactical nuclear weapons), without removing units from other strategically important areas and without carrying out urgent mobilization measures, or that's it :-)