It is the 920th day of war in Ukraine, but it seems like we are still at the beginning of a conflict that shows no sign of stopping. Indeed, the fighting continues with an intensity never seen before. On the one hand, the Russian army, humiliated by the Ukrainian invasion of the Russian region of Kursk, has reacted by unleashing a “firestorm” on the cities and energy infrastructure of Ukraine, indiscriminately hitting the entire country and also the western regions (according to the Kiev Air Force, bombers, missiles and drones have hit the capital, Odessa, Lviv, Vinnicya and the regions of Kherson, Kirovohrad, Sumy, Poltava, Chernihiv, Zhytomyr, Zaporizhia). Meanwhile, the Moscow army is pushing to conquer Prokovsk, in Donbass, to break the eastern front line in the hope of regaining the initiative in the war and threatening the entire east of the country.
On the other hand, however, Kiev’s forces – although in serious difficulty in the eastern sector – appear somewhat reinvigorated, to the point of having begun maneuvers to break through the Russian border also in the Belgorod region where, at the time of writing, fierce fighting is underway. According to Russian sources, about 500 Ukrainian soldiers (but other sources indicate a much higher number) have advanced to Nekhoteyevka and Shebekino. They probably moved from nearby Kharkiv, the second largest Ukrainian city, close to the border with Belgorod, which in turn borders the Kursk region where Ukrainian troops have already penetrated last August 6. Taking Belgorod as well, already hammered by Kiev in these two years, would be confirmation that Kiev is not only determined but still fully capable of putting Moscow in serious difficulty.
In this sense, there are also rumors coming from the Russian Ministry of Defense itself, according to which the Kremlin’s armed forces have repelled an attempted landing by a Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance group around Kinburn Spit, on the sea coast of the Dnieper estuary, in the Kherson region. That is, the region where Kiev had invested a lot of forces in recent months, because according to the plans it aims to overcome the natural limit of the river in view of a future assault (at least according to strategic military plans) on the eastern side of the region. From here, in perspective, there is the most difficult and coveted territorial reconquest: that of the Crimean peninsula, which has fallen into Russian hands since 2014 and is still considered impregnable today. Moscow has stated that numerous foreign mercenaries from Poland also participated in the assault on the Dnieper, but the news cannot be confirmed.
If the Ukrainian strategies are not only consistent with the war plans but above all effective, it seems to be due to General Oleksandr Syrsky, the true architect of the recent change of pace of the Ukrainian armies. Although described by the Western media as “not suitable to lead the confrontation with Moscow on the battlefield in this phase of the conflict”, also because “too ready to sacrifice troops and means and too docile to the requests of the political world” or Zelensky, instead the general seems to have become Vladimir Putin’s worst nightmare day after day. After all, Syrsky has a significant advantage: he knows the Russian mentality and the mechanics of its army thoroughly because not only was he born in Russia, but he also completed his military studies here; furthermore, his father is a retired colonel of the Moscow armed forces, and this has also made him a “traitor” in the eyes of the Russians, but above all a danger.
Syrsrky has been heavily criticized by his troops for his cruelty and disregard for the lives of soldiers – in the 2015 encirclement of Debaltsevo he lost 3,000 units, while in the 2022 battles at Soledar and Bakhmut his refusal to withdraw troops caused thousands more unnecessary victims. Nonetheless, he is responsible for the “great successes” achieved by the Ukrainian army: namely the defense of Kiev and the offensive of Kharkiv, the two maneuvers that prevented Ukraine from collapsing under the blows of the Russian invader. And so also the surprise move to enter Russian territory to stay there.
After the move orchestrated by Syrsky, Vladimir Putin lost his temper with his own people, but he still chose to follow the same script he has applied several times in the past in the face of major tragedies, from the sinking of the nuclear submarine Kursk (yes, that name periodically returns to haunt Russia) to the Beslan massacre: that is, Putin minimizes, reducing each embarrassing episode to a minor fact that does not scratch or compromise Russian prestige and the president’s basic political strategy. In the meantime, however, he has given the order to unleash terror: the Russian army has in fact responded initially with the weapon it knows best, revenge. Launching blind bombings on civilians, as always happens and as is now a habit of the Russians, and without having any precise strategy in mind, in this way it has temporarily lost the initiative in the war and now finds itself having to review many of its initial plans, marred by the daring (sometimes bordering on recklessness) but very effective tactics of the Ukrainians.
Will Moscow be able to expel the Ukrainians who have entered Russian territory by October 1, or in about forty days, as requested by Putin? It is hard to believe, even if in this war everything, even the impossible, seems to become possible. General Syrsky’s gamble to penetrate Kursk – and, apparently, also Belgorod – is no more reckless than the invasion of Ukraine that started it all. At the moment, therefore, things are looking pretty bad for Moscow and its international prestige.
