The August campaign has entered its most important phase: that of consolidating the progress made, both (above all) by Kiev and by Moscow, which has been experiencing a period of ups and downs in recent weeks. The president himself, Vladimir Putin, from Chechnya – where he had not been since 2011 and where he arrived after having also visited North Ossetia and Kabardino Balkaria – has just ordered his military to “expel Ukrainian troops from the Kursk region by October 1”, convinced that Russia will “without a doubt” prevail by that date over the Ukrainian forces, which are now stationed 40 km behind enemy lines.
This is also why Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov announced the creation of the Russian combat groups “Belgorod”, “Kursk” and “Bryansk” at a meeting of the Coordination Council for Military Security of Border Territories. (from the names of the three Russian regions bordering Ukraine affected by the latest clashes) designed specifically to reorganize “the protection of citizens and territories from attacks by unmanned aerial vehicles and other means of attack”. In short, the Kremlin and President Putin himself are trying to close ranks in the face of this unexpected threat. In the meantime, however, the maneuvers of Kiev’s soldiers on Russian territory do not stop and, after having blown up a second bridge, near Zvannoe, the Ukrainian engineers are now working to maintain the advantage gained with the invasion and continue to slow down the enemy’s efforts, but without going beyond logic. In fact, by the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s own admission, the Ukrainian military command is only aiming to maintain a “buffer zone” to be used as a bargaining chip in view of (not yet arrived) future negotiations.
The Kremlin, perhaps having recovered from the shock of the insult it suffered, has chosen for the moment not to fall head over heels into the trap so well-conceived by Ukrainian general Oleksandr Syrsky. – the strategist of the “Kursk plan” – and ordered his commanders not to withdraw Russian forces from key areas of Donbass, in eastern Ukraine, to go and stop and push back the Ukrainians to the north. This leaves room for many doubts and only one interpretation. If on the one hand Vladimir Putin is simply furious about the Ukrainian breakthrough in the Russian region of Kursk, on the other he would like to console himself with the “good news” that could soon reach him from Donbass, where his army is advancing at a constant pace towards Toretsk, Chasiv Yar and especially in the direction of Prokovsk. This last city in particular has a strategic value to say the least: it is the last large outpost along the route that heads towards Dnipro, Zaporizhia and whose branches go back up to the capital. Above all, Prokovsk is also a key railway hub and a point of convergence for war supplies for Kiev’s troops defending the front lines throughout Donetsk and Lugansk, which are under threat everywhere.
Also because in total there are almost 400 thousand Russian soldiers who have been stationed there for over a year. And even today they are constantly pressing on the front line in search of weak points to break through the enemy defenses, aware that the Ukrainian forces are exhausted: because they are fewer in number (in a ratio of ten to one), because they are constantly hammered by Russian artillery, and because they are facing assaults by small enemy units almost without interruption, such is the Russian obstinacy in delivering a tangible result to Putin, which has been missing for too long. Therefore, for the Kremlin, diverting troops from Donbass now to reposition them in Kursk would nullify the efforts made so far. And it is also what Syrsky and Zelensky clearly wanted to achieve. And therefore it will not happen. Other reinforcements are likely to arrive from Crimea and other areas where the Russians are present, but not from the key sector of Prokovsk. Putin in fact has another vision of the war: the Ukrainian capitulation is, according to him, an inevitable fact, a mere question of time. Time and means that – according to him – Russia and its army do not lack.
In short, for the two belligerents and on both fronts – Kursk and Donbass – we are in a very delicate situation, as open as it is uncertain, where it will be first and foremost the prevalence of one military strategy over the other that will accelerate the process towards overcoming the impasse and setting up a negotiating table with greater weight than in the past. At stake, as is now all too clear, is the end of the territorial integrity of Ukraine as we knew it or Russia’s worst military defeat since the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan.
