SITREP 8/8/24: Day Three of Kursk Attack, Major Updates

Let’s get right into the Kursk offensive, which has heated up and remains tense. There’s a lot of information to cover so I’ll eschew any flowery extravagances and contextualizations, getting right down to details instead.

Firstly, what’s been made clear is this is a serious offensive, rather than “TikTok border raid” like the ones of May and June last year, in Belgorod region. Not only are Ukrainian units utilizing fairly strict Opsec protocols, but it’s clear an entire preformed multi-brigade operational taskforce has been assembled, consisting of several elite units, some of which took part in the 2023 Zaporozhye offensive.

Some have posted this list, though take it with a grain of salt because there is virtually no proof at all of most of these brigades’ involvement just yet:

List of formations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, including the Territorial Defense and State Border Guard Service, involved in the Kursk region.

▫️ 3rd Combat Brigade (of the State Border Guard Service)
▫️ 5th Separate Assault Brigade
▫️ 22nd Mechanized Brigade
▫️ 24th Separate Assault Battalion
▫️ 61st Mechanized Brigade
▫️ 80th Separate Air Assault Brigade
▫️ 82nd Separate Air Assault Brigade
▫️ 103rd Separate Brigade (of the Territorial Defense)
▫️ 150th Separate Mechanized Brigade
▫️ 151st Separate Battalion (of the Territorial Defense)

The 22nd was blooded in the Bakhmut battle, while the 82nd is a famous elite brigade that was given the German Marders, American Strykers, and British Challengers for the Zaporozhye offensive. And we have now seen many Strykers and some Marders in Kursk—which, by the way, has garnered controversy given that German “tanks” are now officially back on old Russian territory—and Kursk of all places!—for the first time since WWII:

If Ukraine uses German-made tanks during its invasion of the Kursk region, this will not cause outrage in Berlin , said the head of the German Bundestag's Defense Committee, Markus Faber.

Here they are being hit when Russian Lancets decimated Ukrainian columns in the Kursk region yesterday:

Getting back:

The earlier listed brigades are not, as of this time, fully staffed but rather a mishmash of various battalions, detachments, elements, etc., of these brigades. Thus, there’s not actually tens of thousands of troops, as that would suggest, but perhaps 2000 at most for now, according to Russian MOD.

The two most important questions then are: how did Ukraine get so many fresh men, and how did they breach the border so badly? Let’s examine:

Firstly, Russia has apparently been planning its own Sumy incursion for a long time. As such, it’s said that they were in the process of having cleared most of the mines in the region, in order to facilitate their own future advances. This is the first big difference with the Zaporozhye offensive of 2023, which was stopped in large part, as you may recall, by Russia’s vast mine system.

The Ukrainian penetration in Kharkov had no minefields to go through, although later on Russian correspondents noted the presence of the ISDM Zemledeliye “Agriculture” remote-mining system, which scatters mines to Ukraine’s rear by firing them MLRS-style.

Russia reportedly has large reserves in the area, but they were no where near the border so as not to have their concentrations targeted by potential long-range strikes like HIMARS/ATACMS, etc. Thus, the initial Ukrainian penetration was apparently met only with border guards, some combination of Rosgvardia, FSB guards, and potentially conscripts. This was how Ukraine initially made a large capture of dozens of hapless border guards directly at the first border checkpoint, which has been geolocated to here:

Watch below—the tactic described by AFU sources was that they initially bombarded the border checkpoint with FPV drones, which can be seen in the video, causing the trapped guards to surrender en masse:

Second:

This offensive has by all accounts been extremely well-planned and coordinated, with “sources” claiming involvement of British MI6, which is only to be expected. There are many write-ups of the precise tactics utilized by the advancing AFU forces, which I’ll post a little later.

First, why Kursk itself, and not an offensive in another region? This is a sensible conclusion I can’t disagree with:

Why Kursk?

We all remember the Belarusian action, which we did not buy. No transfer of troops to Belarus happened.

Where else can Russian troops be deployed?

Bryansk is a swampy area with dense forests. They won't go there.

Belgorod - there are quite a lot of Russian troops in the region. If you go there, you can quickly get a kick in the teeth + the active part of the front is precisely in the Belgorod direction.

Eastern Front - constant problems in the direction of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, also an active part of the front.

Crimea - the waterborne landing force is being drowned, and by land it is also necessary to occupy the left bank - also unrealistic.

So what's left? Kursk. Kursk Oblast borders Sumy Oblast. We've seen activity here before, when the RDC* stormed Tyotkino, unsuccessfully.

Now the enemy has gone to Sudzha. The main idea of ​​the maneuver is to break the Russian troops, reduce the intensity in other directions.

Let's also note the upcoming elections in the US, where the curators are already talking about stopping the conflict. We need to show victories urgently. Results like Krynki are no longer interesting, such news will not resonate in the West, but crossing the border and controlling the territories of the Russian Federation, at least for a short time, could become a new, good reason for "let me actively defend myself."

*a terrorist organization banned in Russia.

Archangel of Spetsnaz.

In general, the advance was described as very well coordinated, where Ukrainian drone teams lead the way with FPV barrages, which took out Russia’s “eyes and ears” in the sky, by targeting not only fortifications but Russian surveillance drones. This was all covered by an effective EW net that was said to have caused many problems for Russian communications in the region, which happened to be timed with a massive DDOS attack taking out the region’s internet:

Internet resources of Kursk region were subjected to a massive DDoS attack, many services were out of order and temporarily unavailable, the regional authorities reported.

Since many Russian groups use various WhatsApp/Discord/etc. type of apps to coordinate, this likely affected communications along with the EW jamming. As reported last time, all this was also timed with a mass psyop campaign, like the deep fakes of the Kursk region governor I posted last time, meant to sow confusion at a critical moment.

In short: it’s a text book assault, with nothing bad that can be said about it. Ukraine chose a region that was a soft underbelly and accumulated a force disparity against a bunch of nearly defenseless Russian border guards and conscripts. However, as soon as Ukrainian forces began incurring, they were hit mercilessly from Russia’s fire-strike-complex.

What’s remarkable is that besides the first border checkpoint capture of Russian troops, Ukrainian units have posted nearly no other Russian losses whatsoever. Russians on the other hand have now posted a verifiable dozens of destroyed armored vehicles of all types.

Yesterday, Russian MOD claimed over 600 manpower losses for the AFU already. Even if we assume this number is exaggerated, the MOD’s vehicular losses was something in the 60-80 region, which is mostly in line with verified losses. So, if they didn’t lie about the vehicle hits, why would they lie about the manpower number?

Entire columns of Ukrainian vehicles have been hit, but that doesn’t mean they were all destroyed: images appeared of engineering vehicles attempting to salvage some of the damaged vehicles, so a percentage has likely been saved.

I posted a video earlier of Marders being hit, but there are many others of various tanks and IFVs, IMVs, APCs, ICVs, etc. For instance:

Here’s another destroyed mini column:

Iskander or Tornado-S cluster attack on column:

There are at least 4-6 other videos showing destructions of vehicles, as well as a dozen or more showing drone drops on infantry, including this one with evacuated wounded:

Combined with yesterday’s video of mass Iskander cluster hits on columns, with some counting ~20 or more vehicles hit, we can get to at least 40-60 counted hits so far.

The problem is, Ukraine is using a lot of light expendable vehicles, particularly the types it has virtually no shortage of, which are the IMV (Infantry Mobility Vehicles), which includes things like MRAPS, Humvees, and Kozak armored cars.

Now we see frantic calls for blood donations in Sumy hospitals, which usually signals heavy casualties:

Ukraine also utilized very good tactics in sending DRG—sabotage and recon groups—far in advance to create chaos in the “rear” of Russian units, intercept rushing reinforcements on roads, all while avoiding large groupings of Russian troops, and essentially bypassing settlements rather than fully “capturing” them. There’s even one report of the DRGs dressing up as Russian troops to take over checkpoints, which they’ve used many times before.

A significant portion of the information about enemy breakthroughs deep into our territory is based on the actions of small mobile groups, whose task is to break through further from the border, sow panic, disorganize the rear, and interfere with the establishment of coordination of the actions of units on the spot with the approaching reserves. Hence the various contradictory reports about the observation of enemy forces deep in our territory, where they mobile groups both pretend to be present and create conditions for blocking roads. At the same time, where the enemy's mobile groups reveal the absence of our forces and operational emptiness, they try to push through additional armored vehicles with motorized infantry in order to consolidate control of the territory. As soon as a continuous front line is formed (this will not happen immediately), the effectiveness of such groups will begin to decline.

Two more enlightening posts of AFU’s tactics:

However, now that heavy Russian reinforcements are beginning to arrive in the region, things have slowed down and stabilized for now. But before we get to where things are heading next, let’s answer the second question from earlier:

Where Did Ukraine Get All That Manpower?

I had begun mentioning it last time, but there is now increasing evidence that Zelensky deliberately starved frontline brigades of reinforcements and replenishment in order to build these rear combat brigades for the Kursk offensive. We now have a shocking new Economist article, which states outright that entire battalions on the Pokrovsk front are manned by a mere 20 people—keep in mind a battalion is supposed to have at least 800:

https://archive.ph/UDD7j

A couple other highlights:

Not to mention posts claiming Ukrainian conscripts were sent directly to Kursk out of “boot camp”:

Now there are reports from several sources claiming that wily Zelensky in fact utilized all those new 8-14 brigades he recently claimed he had been saving up, but which weren’t sufficiently armed yet, according to him:

‼️For the attack in the Kursk region, the Ukrainian army command used all the reserves that had been accumulating over the past year.

A breakthrough deep into Russian territory was recognized as a priority instead of holding positions in the Donbass.

Several Ukrainian resources reported this at once.

You’ll recall last time I posted one opinion that his “not sufficiently armed” statement was a bluff—deliberate misdirection.

If this is really the case, then that means this may be Ukraine’s final big hurrah offensive, the one they had been saving up for a long time as their last needle-moving attempt to affect “coming negotiations”. If these brigades are recklessly thrown away in the same way that the 10th and 11th Corps were done during the Zaporozhye ‘23 offensive, then the fat lady may sing for the AFU as a whole, as there will be no reserves left, particularly to contain Russia’s coming breakthroughs in the Donbass direction.

And we have several new indications that improving the negotiations position is in fact the operative goal here. First, from presidential advisor Mikhail Podolyak:

You’ll note above he reaches the conclusion at the end of the video, that the current operation is all about influencing Russia to lower its demands in the negotiation process.

Rob Lee seems to agree:

Of course, the danger is that Ukraine can strengthen its position in a far more dangerous way than merely taking some uninhabited rural zone. It’s becoming increasingly likely that Ukraine’s real target is the Kursk nuclear power plant, as AFU forces have veered sharply in that direction earlier today, before being stopped dangerously far at around Kromskie Byki, according to Ukrainian maps:

We don’t quite know yet if it’s a larger force or just smaller DRG attacks, but if Ukraine has managed to get the cavalry up there, that puts them a mere 25km from the nuclear power plant. And as referenced last time, that would just about already put the plant within artillery range, give or take.

The Greater Danger

By far the greatest danger lies in the very high possibility that Ukraine may yet cunningly introduce additional brigades in a secondary or even tertiary direction. There are some rumors and indications of this, including troop build up sightings, etc.

The likely vector would be further west around Glukhov (Hlukhiv on map), in order to cut across to Rylsk, where they would meet the initial force coming in from Sudzha, to entirely cut off that “shelf”, which would give them total control of a good portion of Russian territory from which they could subsequently stage brigade level advances toward the Kursk plant:

There are now strong whispers from several sources that AFU has also built up another grouping of brigades in the Belgorod direction which is getting ready to open up a new direction—but it’s not specified precisely where in Belgorod. I’d guess in the old Grayvoron area from 2023 to try to frazzle the Russian Volchansk grouping.

As of now, it’s claimed Ukrainian forces were stopped at Korenevo after Russian reinforcements arrived:

But there’s no definitive indication yet whether the Russian forces there can hold out or not, and how far away heavier reinforcements are. Both sides are surprisingly sticking to greater than normal Opsec.

🪖 Why are there no photos/videos from the Ukrainian Armed Forces?

At the moment we can observe information hygiene on the part of the enemy. All because he adheres to a certain plan of action, namely:

1. Information vacuum;

2. This is not a TikTok operation;

3. There are videos and photographs prepared in advance;

4. Silence mode (as it was at Rabotino).

Why take it off if you then have to go out and accept defeat, and everyone will laugh at it.

Currently, a problem is being recorded in the operation of satellite communications in the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

Archangel of Spetsnaz.

Others have gotten the same idea, as I saw this map posted elsewhere, which even references the rumors of buildups on the Glukhov side:

There is potential for other possible directions, but this one would make the most strategic sense to insert the other brigades. No one knows for certain how many units are already in use, though some have speculated only 3-5 of the brigades—or rather elements of them—have been used in the Sudzha direction.

The enemy command is launching an offensive with three full-strength infantry brigades: the 103rd Teroborona, 22nd and 88th mechanized Brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are armed with NATO equipment and are actively supported by air defense and artillery. In the vanguard are the 54th Special Forces battalion of the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine and two media units of the Wings to Hell and Black Swift UAVs.

Thus, if it’s true that Zelensky has gone all-in hail mary style with the remaining reserves, then there could be half a dozen more brigades left to be utilized, though they’re likely not fully manned, and can only contribute a good battalion or two each.

Once again. This is not reconnaissance in force or a provocation or terrorism. This is a full-fledged, well-prepared military combined arms invasion. In which about 20 different units of the crests, brought together in various BTGs, participate. In the occupied territories, they dig in, establish communications, equip firing points and introduce new reserves. Roads are mined, adjacent territories are saturated with sabotage and reconnaissance groups. If they are not driven out now, then everything will turn into a positional war. Their main tactical goal is the Kursk NPP. Strategic - I am sure that the exchange of territories.

So: the conclusion is that, depending on how prepared the Russian side is, how good its intelligence is, how many forces in reserve they can bring, and how quickly they can position them, will determine whether this offensive is halted and contained roughly where it’s at now, or whether new break-outs can occur which spiral out of control like the infamous Balakleya-Izyum-Kharkov debacle of September 2022.

There are all sorts of stories of various elite Russian units streaming into the region now, from the elite 45th Spetsnaz of the Airborne Forces, to Aida special forces of the Akhmat unit, to allegedly Wagner, and the experienced Pyatnashka brigade.

Ukrainian military observer Kostyantyn Mashovets reported on August 7 that an unspecified unit of the Chechyna-based 71st Motorized Rifle Regiment (58th Combined Arms Army [CAA], Southern Military District [SMD]) has deployed directly to the Sudzhenskyi Raion—generally consistent with some reports from Ukrainian and Russian sources that social media footage shows Chechen "Akhmat" units in the Sudzha area since over a week ago.

And:

It has just been confirmed that having met the Aida SpN Akhmat detachment of the Russian Defense Ministry in Sudzha, the "elite" 82nd brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces decided to retreat. But not all of it. Part of it remained lying along the river. Aida has no losses.

At night, the Wagner veterans' detachments will also enter the battle, dividing the difficult direction with Pyatnashka.

There is no need to invent anything else. Friday and the weekend will show everything. Who is capable of what.

There is potential for this operation to turn into a war-ending disaster for Ukraine. Recall that since last year to early this year, many prominent figures on both sides—which include Budanov on the Ukrainian side, Russian commander of the Center Group General Mordvichev—stated that “the decisive battles of the war will be fought in summer 2024” and that the war will effectively be settled at this time. They seemed to all know something we didn’t at the time. Maybe these predictions are finally coming home to roost, and perhaps Ukraine is throwing everything into the fire for one last desperate attempt to unman Russia in some decisive way.

If that’s the case, it’s certainly a valiant effort, and makes more sense than simply throwing waves of meat at highly reinforced Donbass fortresses. I’ve been saying for a long time now, that the only trump cards Ukraine has left, are some small, relatively easy to attain objectives which can make huge symbolic or PR splashes; i.e. Zaporozhye plant, Kerch Bridge, Crimea, etc. All these things are easier than defeating the entire Russian Army in detail. But it seems Ukraine may have found one other alternative we hadn’t considered in the Kursk plant, whose unexpected trajectory was lightly defended.

However, make no mistake, there is also a major danger here for Russia. As I said, it all depends how adequately and competently Russian General Staff can assess the true strategic thought behind the operation. If they can correctly predict the new secondary vectors, and adequately prepare forces to respond to them, grabbing the initiative to stymy the AFU’s plans, then it may turn to naught for Ukraine. But if they continue getting caught with their pants down, and functioning only passively or reactively, letting Ukraine maintain combat initiative, then Ukraine may keep two steps ahead, and snow-ball the assault into another Kharkov-style collapse which would turn into a huge headache for Russia.

Such a headache would be reputationally very costly, given that it would degrade Russian citizens’ trust in their government, Putin’s leadership, etc. This is particularly the case since many have already complained that Russia’s handling of the ongoing events has been lackluster, with little warning given to civilians to evacuate, causing many to now be injured, and a growing number killed. A video reportedly of Sudzha residents making an appeal to Putin has already appeared:

Lastly, this thought: for now, there are a lot of doomers wailing about a mass Russian disaster of unprecedented scale. We know so little of the ongoing details that for now, I can’t in good faith objectively judge the operation before a little more time has passed. That’s because the much smaller Belgorod incursion in 2023 took two full weeks to suppress, and weeks further after that to fully clear Russian territory of Ukrainian DRGs.

Now, we don’t even remember that raid anymore—a mere blip in history that left nothing more than scattered AFU corpses in its wake.

Thus, we have to wait and see how quickly and competently Russian forces can respond to the current incursion. If they manage to preempt the potentially cunning second phase waiting in the chamber, and boot the AFU out in a matter of weeks, then it would be difficult to call it a ‘disaster’ of any kind in retrospect.

This is particularly the case because so far Ukraine has objectively been suffering vastly more losses, barring the initial POW captures, and so thus far, the offensive is much costlier for Ukraine. But that can always change, so as I said, it all depends on how Russian command navigates this situation.

Even the worst case scenario for Russia won’t end the war, but merely create a big headache. But the worst case scenario for Ukraine, could potentially be a war-ending blunder of over-extension, given that Ukraine stands to waste its last reserves, which could lead to a chain of collapses in Donbass from which Ukraine would never recover.

And speaking of those, while the Kursk breakout has been ongoing, Russia has continued capturing several new zones in Donbass, with the Pokrovsk direction particularly feeling the pressure.

One of the most striking were reports that Russians have begun storming Hrodivka, which you can see below is already getting pretty close to Pokrovsk, and is actually inside ‘Pokrovsk urban agglomeration’:

In the above photo, Serhivka and Zhelanne are also in the process of being captured, or have already been so, according to some as-yet unverified reports.

Closeup on Zhelanne from yesterday:

Ukrainian officer Tatarigami has written an entire article that—despite the “successes” in Kursk—continues to show skepticism toward the operation, given how badly the Donbass front is collapsing for the AFU:

https://euromaidanpress.com/2024/08/09/ukraines-surprise-kursk-incursion-lifting-spirits-or-stretching-resources/

He specifically cites the lack of manpower and reserves in the Pokrovsk and Toretsk directions, as highlighted by the earlier Economist article.

He writes:

As Ukrainian forces slowly retreat in the Pokrovsk direction, there are no stabilization reserves currently available on site.

So far, there is no evidence that Russia is moving its main units from Donetsk Oblast to Kursk, casting doubt on the theory that this incursion could relieve pressure on Donetsk. That being said, it may be too early to draw conclusions, as such movements could occur in the future.

However, as of today, there is no public information or indication that Russia has shifted its main forces or decreased pressure in the Pokrovsk direction.

So while we can’t be absolutely certain just yet, there is a high chance that the Kursk breakout is a fatal gambit by Zelensky, a last throw of the dice, to try to keep the Donbass front from collapsing by causing some dilemma in Russia’s rear.

Via WeebUnion (Warmapper/blogger)

Decided to discuss the situation with my Russian source.

Here are the main points.

This is not a Russian trap, the Ukrainians simply did a good offensive. The Russians were clearing mines for their own Sumy offensive and the Ukrainians took advantage of that to launch their own.

The motive of the Ukrainians is also questioned but the general idea is to "strike first", to avoid a collapse on the Ukrainian side they took the fight to the Russian side before they were ready.

Considering Russia was preparing their own offensive they do indeed have soldiers ready. These were stationed far from the front to avoid detection + fpv/artillery strikes.

This means Russia will likely respond very quickly to this Ukrainian offensive and it will not live for much longer.

Russian side is not panicking at all but they are very busy to respond to the current situation.

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A couple other ‘strange’ or interesting things to point out.

Firstly, there could be something brewing in the AFU’s high ranks given that Sarah Ashton-Cirillo recently dropped those “serious charges” against Syrsky, with claims of proof that he’s a Russian plant. Now today, there were stories that Defense Minister Umerov survived an assassination attempt as his car reportedly exploded, though it seems he was unharmed. That story remains unverified, but if there’s truth to it, the timing of these two stories appears to coincide quite interestingly with the launch of the offensive. Not sure what to quite make of it yet, but it’s something to watch.

Secondly, there’s another odd story to watch concerning the sudden flare-up of operations in Syria. There were reports local tribes began attacking the Kurds in the Deir-Ezzor region, with claims that they captured some of the first oil fields from American forces. The Americans there were hit with strikes days ago which reportedly left half a dozen of them injured.

Now suddenly, we get this uncorroborated report:

🇮🇷🇷🇺"In the past few hours, Russian and Iranian military cargo and transport planes were spotted heading to Syria, loaded with advanced weapons. An important development that could reshape the military landscape in the region." - Syrian media reports

It looks like they managed to really upset Putin with the attack on Kursk, Russian advanced weapons are going into the hands of Hezbollah

The reason all this dovetails in intriguing fashion is that Putin may have finally chosen to ‘escalate’ asymmetrically against the U.S. in light of the attacks on Kursk. Recall his words:

Amid other ongoing reports that Russia is supplying a large amount of air defense equipment to Iran, there could be potential for a Russian-driven escalation in this region as ‘payback’ for the crossing of a red line in the Kursk attack.

On the topic of that ‘red line’: not only is Western equipment being used in Russia proper, but there are now reports that the invading force is overflowing with Western mercenaries—with Polish and French languages being heard on radio comms, as well as Georgian mercenary sightings:

The terrorist invasion of the Kursk region was commanded by the militant of the "Georgian Legion" Georgy Partsvania

It was his militants who were among the first to attack Russian border guards, Western media reported, citing one of the leaders of the Georgian group, Vano Nadiradze.

Partsvania went to fight in Ukraine two years ago. He was enlisted in Vano Nadiradze's unit and fought on the front lines for two months, including in Irpen, Kyiv region.

From Kursk:

Sundry items:

The claim that F-16s were spotted over Kakhovka, unverified for now:

F-16s spotted for the first time over Russian-controlled Kakhovka district in Kherson region

The head of the district administration, Pavel Filipchuk, reported this.

—

Apti Alaudinov explains how the AFU was able to bypass the border so quickly:

He mentions resources: there were some heavy rumors and claims that, just like infamous Ukrainian border embezzlement, the Russian border defense fortification construction was riddled with massive graft, and was never properly finished.

There are many other rumors, which include outright treason on behalf of some Russian artillery commander who “let the enemy through” then disappeared:

No proof of that, but anything’s possible.

—

Russian airforce and long range missile strikes have been hammering the AFU Kursk grouping’s rear, with unverified reports of various commanders having been taken out already:

Lastly, notorious Azov acting commander Bogdan Krotevych calls for Russia’s enemies to take advantage of the Kursk gambit and regain their territories:

Meanwhile, former Ukrainian Minister of Infrastructure Omelyan says if they just had a few more volunteers, they would have taken Moscow by now:

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