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Zelensky's strategic gamble has paid off. His surprise attack on Russia has angered Putin and has three goals.

2024-08-17

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Ukraine began its raid on Russian territory on August 6. As the counterattack entered its second week, Ukraine claimed to have controlled about 1,000 square kilometers of land and 74 local towns and villages.

Belgorod became the second region in Russia to declare a state of emergency after Kursk, and hundreds of thousands of residents have been evacuated from both regions so far. Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said the situation in the region was "extremely difficult and tense."

A successful gamble by the Ukrainian army

After the failure of two major counterattacks in Ukraine last year, the country conducted a deep tactical reflection. The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense studied all the battles in the two world wars and found that there was one common point for victory, that is, the political leadership must keep the tactics absolutely confidential until the goal is achieved.

Ukraine did a very good job of keeping secrets this time. Soldiers hid heavy weapons in the forest. On the surface, it looked like military training, but in fact it was a cover for military operations. The high-ranking generals of the army did not receive the raid mission until three days before the raid, while the ordinary soldiers were deployed with the combat plan 24 hours before the operation.

This time, Ukraine first used a drone cluster attack to quickly paralyze the Russian defenses, followed by a high-speed advance of mechanized troops. Russia only deployed anti-harassment troops, and was completely caught off guard. The retreat was very unprofessional, leaving the highway monitoring system directly to the Ukrainian troops. As a result, the Russian reinforcements were completely beaten under the noses of the Ukrainian army, and more than 1,000 Russian soldiers became "high-value" prisoners. You know, Russia and Ukraine fought for two and a half years, and Ukraine only captured more than 2,000 Russian soldiers.

The Kursk region was originally the rear area of ​​the Russian-Ukrainian battlefield, so it became a place where many Russian soldiers gained military merit. Although many of the soldiers had low combat effectiveness, they had backgrounds and connections, and were directly registered with the Russian Federal Security Service, which is Putin's core system. In the final prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine, Ukraine had already named these people to be exchanged for members of the "Azov Battalion".

Putin's anger

This is Ukraine's deepest and most significant counterattack against Russia since the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian war in February 2022. Putin vowed that Ukraine "will definitely pay the price for this"!

Putin's anger is imaginable. In the video conference, facing the governor of Kursk Oblast who reported like chanting a mantra, and the Russian Army Chief of General Staff Gerasimov who dared not say a word, would Putin miss Prigozhin, the head of Wagner, who "mutinyed" against him last May. You should know that this "cook" who does not look at the recipe but at the tactics, had strongly suggested to Putin at that time: occupy Kharkiv Oblast as soon as possible and establish a military buffer zone there; if Kharkiv cannot be taken, as a second choice, a military defense zone should be established in Kursk Oblast and Sbelgorod Oblast: the purpose is to prevent the Ukrainian army from launching a surprise attack.

Obviously, the chef's suggestion was not adopted, and one year after he "went offline" from the helicopter, Russia was successfully "stolen" by the Ukrainian army. This was the first time since World War II that foreign troops occupied Russian territory. And the Ukrainian army also used blitzkrieg.

General Gerasimov said several times last week that the invasion of Ukraine had stopped, but videos of Ukrainian soldiers taking down Russian flags in villages in the Kursk region and videos of Russian soldiers being captured slapped Putin in the face.

Gerasimov was notably absent from the most recent Security Council meeting chaired by Putin and specifically convened to address the crisis, though one of Putin's closest allies, the head of Russia's security service, Alexander Bortnikov, was present.

Internally, Putin cannot directly blame his subordinates for their incompetence. He attributes this situation to Western countries: "The enemy has obviously achieved their goals with the support of Western masters. The West is using Ukraine to deal with us. It seems that the enemy wants to gain better bargaining chips for future negotiations."

However, this time the Russian army showed a rare level of determination. Although US officials told CNN that the Russian army had withdrawn some of its elite troops on the Ukrainian front to its homeland to retake the land occupied by the Ukrainian army, according to the news from the eastern and southern fronts of the Ukrainian army: Russia did not mobilize its main forces on the eastern front to come back to save the situation, but continued to attack the Donetsk front in eastern Ukraine.

Currently, according to Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, a Russian army including Chechen fighters has been deployed in Kursk. In addition, the Russian army is also continuing to gather troops from the Far East and central regions. In addition, Russia's ally Belarus has ordered the deployment of military reinforcements near the Ukrainian border, including infantry, air force, air defense systems and missile systems.

According to the BBC's frontline reporter: "Putin may once again launch another wave of mobilization to bring hundreds of thousands of soldiers into his armed forces."

Why did Ukraine take control of the small town of Sodja?

Sudja is the largest town Ukraine tried to take control of during the attack. The town has a population of about 5,000 people and its central square still features a statue of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin. It also has a gas station, the last one still supplying gas to Europe, especially to Slovakia and Hungary via Ukraine.

According to Ukrainian news platform RBC, in 2023, Russia transported 14.65 billion cubic meters of natural gas through Sudja, almost half of Russia's total natural gas exports to Europe.

Although Europe has largely reduced its reliance on Russian gas supplies since the war began, Moscow continues to pump gas through Sudja under a five-year deal signed with Kiev in late 2019. Ukraine has said it will not extend the agreement, which is due to expire in 2024.

There are concerns that Russian state energy giant Gazprom will use the current fighting as an excuse to stop pumping gas through Sudja until the deal is concluded. Video footage from the front lines showed Ukrainian soldiers carrying rifles and flags at Gazprom facilities near the town.

Will the situation in the Russia-Ukraine war be reversed from now on?

Ukraine's counterattack against Russia may seem easy, but from a global perspective, this does not mean that the war will end soon.

"It's an area of ​​about 50 miles by 20 miles, which is insignificant given the size of Russia and Ukraine," said Professor Galeotti, an expert on Russia. "But the political implications are much more important."

Ukraine is eager to show its Western allies, especially the United States, that its troops can keep fighting. This also strengthens Kiev's negotiating power, at least temporarily: With its troops 30 kilometers inside Russian territory, Moscow is unlikely to accept suggestions that the battle line be frozen in its current position.

Ukraine's tactics were very efficient and covert, but its strategic intentions were very clear:
First: Disperse Russian troops and reduce pressure on Ukrainian troops on the front line.
Second: Move the war to Russia and give the Russians a taste of the war that the Ukrainians have tasted, in order to destabilize President Putin’s regime.
Third: to put pressure on Moscow to trade its troop withdrawal for its own in any possible future negotiations.

However, judging from the current situation, as long as Putin's army can expel or defeat the Ukrainian troops in the country in a short period of time, these three strategic intentions will no longer exist.

Why did Zelensky take this risky move?

Although this successful Ukrainian raid will boost the morale of Ukrainians in the short term, it may lead to greater territorial losses in the entire eastern Ukraine, because the front-line fighting in these areas is still fierce, and cutting off the source of the problem may cause Ukraine to collapse in a head-on confrontation.

Military expert Vladislav Shurygin said that there was no military goal behind the entry into Russian territory, but there was a political goal, which fell into the category of psychological warfare, aimed at distracting people's attention from the failure in Donbass and boosting Ukraine's somewhat deteriorating morale.

However, from a strategic perspective, this raid has three important meanings for Zelensky.

First, the upcoming US election.

Right now, the US presidential election has entered a white-hot stage, and the election situation is currently in a stalemate. Trump and Harris are very close in the polls, and both candidates have the possibility of entering the White House.
But Trump and Harris have completely different views on Ukraine policy. If Trump wins, he will quickly fulfill his campaign promise to promote a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine. This means that he is likely to abandon Zelensky and demand that Ukraine give up some of its territory in the negotiations, including the Crimean Peninsula and the four eastern states occupied by Russia. This will be an unacceptable defeat for Zelensky.
Therefore, before the US election in November, if the Ukrainian army can control part of the Russian territory for a long time, it will prove that Ukraine has the strength to win, and prove that the more than 100 billion US dollars paid by the Democratic Party for military equipment is "worth the money", which will obviously help Harris win.

Second, it is to win more support from the West, especially European allies.

Americans may abandon Ukraine, but Europeans will not give up easily. In this blitzkrieg by Ukraine, German Leopard tanks and British Challenge 2 tanks have appeared in Russian territory. However, Britain and Germany are very cautious about important tactical weapons such as aircraft and missiles, fearing that they will completely anger the Russians. The Financial Times previously reported that Russia had practiced nuclear strikes on a sand table before engaging in a war with Ukraine, and the targets at that time included western France and northern cities in the UK.

Third, Zelensky’s bargaining chips on the negotiating table

Now that Ukraine has occupied Russian territory, it is a shame for Russia. Ukraine can use this sense of shame to leverage more Russian bargaining chips, change the way of negotiating with Russia, and thus gain more negotiating space for itself.
 
However, for Zelensky, all this is premised on the short-term gains of this attack being transformed into a lasting strategic advantage: the Ukrainian army truly gaining a foothold in Russia.


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