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Ukrainian troops have invaded Russia for more than ten days and have taken control of about 1,000 square kilometers of Russian territory. Why has Russia, which claims to have the second strongest military in the world, not yet eliminated the invading enemy?

The first reason is that Russia has basically no troops deployed in Kursk Oblast. The Russian troops in Kursk Oblast are mainly some border guards and national guards. They can catch a few spies, but they have no combat effectiveness and weak fighting will, so there has been a phenomenon of large-scale collective surrender of troops.

At the same time, Russia's territory is too large. If Russia wants to gather its troops distributed across the country and send them to Kursk, it will take at least ten days or half a month.

In fact, as early as last year when Prigozhin led the Wagner mercenaries to launch a mutiny and commanded a light-armed force to quickly advance thousands of kilometers, threatening the security of Moscow at one point, the emptiness of Russia's domestic defense forces was fully exposed.

Now a year has passed, and when the Ukrainian army invaded Russia, they found that Russia's defenses were as weak as ever.

The second reason is that when faced with the Ukrainian army’s attack, Putin did not characterize them as armed aggression, but rather as terrorists who came to cause trouble, and the counterattack he ordered was also named an “anti-terrorist operation.” Since it was just an anti-terrorist operation, it would not affect the operations on the Ukrainian front, and there was no need to transfer troops back from the Ukrainian front to fight.

At present, Russia's main forces are almost all concentrated on the Ukrainian front. If these main forces do not return to support the country, it will be difficult to resolve the Ukrainian army in the short term relying solely on Russia's border guards, national guards or anti-terrorism forces.

Third, perhaps Putin is playing a big game. Putin may not be in a hurry to eliminate the Ukrainian troops that invaded Russia, but to use this adventurous action of the Ukrainians to inspire the Russians to unite against the enemy and encourage more Russians to join the war.

At the same time, Putin may be secretly dispatching troops to gradually encircle the Ukrainian troops, trying to annihilate the invading Ukrainian troops in one fell swoop.

However, if Putin really wants to do this, it is also a risky move. After all, the Ukrainian army's invasion of Russia is the first time that enemy troops have invaded Russia in large numbers since the end of World War II nearly 80 years ago. Putin has always portrayed himself as a strong man who only bullies others and has never been bullied by others. If the Ukrainian army continues to sabotage Russia, even establishes strongholds, and continues to repel the encirclement and suppression of the Russian army, it will be a catastrophic damage to Putin's authority. If the Ukrainian military action triggers civil unrest in Russia, it will be an unbearable burden for Putin.

In the final analysis, the Russian top brass should still hope to get rid of the Ukrainian troops that invaded their homeland as soon as possible. The main reason why they failed to achieve this goal quickly is that their strength is not up to par. Once the Russian army gathers and launches a fierce attack on the Ukrainian troops, we will have to wait and see whether the Ukrainians can hold on.