Compare in your mind the October 7 attack with some small, or not so small, changes: the Nuh’ba battalions invade to a depth of 35 km, conquer 74 settlements within a week, take over an area of almost a thousand square kilometers; Convoys of prisoners move south, to Gaza; 180 thousand citizens evacuate in panic to the north and east; The IDF is unable to repel them, and is digging trenches in the entrances of Tel Aviv.
This is what has been happening in the last week on the Russian side of the Russia-Ukraine border. This is not a pleasant association to Israeli ears, but it is not at all impossible that the Hamas attack on Israel inspired the planners of Operation Kursk.
Ukraine managed to find a loophole in Russia’s defense system not in the midst of Shabbat Simchat Torah, when an entire army laid down its weapons and collapsed on its couches, but in the midst of an intense war, which has been raging for two and a half years. How can you find such a loophole in the midst of such a war?
The audacity of the weak side was made possible by the appalling negligence of the strong side. Eretz, which claims that every NATO alliance threatens its security and conspires to harm its sovereignty, misses preparations for an invasion that lasted for weeks. What does this say about Russia’s ability to defend itself? What does it say about the level of command, about the quality of intelligence?
The very concentration of Ukrainian forces on the border has not gone unnoticed by Russia. According to Russian military channel owners on the Telegram network, local forces warned the command, but, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) in Washington, “Ukrainian forces managed to achieve offensive surprise.”
She crushes, she crushes
Russia has been basing its offensive actions in recent months on a meat grinder: it is throwing tens of thousands of soldiers against the Ukrainians, taking advantage of their considerable numerical inferiority, crushing them but also being crushed. She seems to have convinced herself that this is how war is waged, without imagination, without daring, without breaking tools.
This is how Soviet Russia behaved in World War II. Its losses in a single battle would have collapsed an entire Western European army and brought the war to an end. The battles of the Ukraine war do not compare to the losses of that war, but they break all the world records of the 80 years that have passed since then.
Western estimates put the number of Russian soldiers killed or wounded in Ukraine since February 2022 at half a million. Ukraine claims that more than a thousand Russian soldiers are killed every day. Russian sources put the number at a quarter of that. Even the low number would have brought crowds to the streets in a western country. But Putin has promised the faithful or fearful silence of his subjects.
The assumption is that the Ukrainians want first and foremost to ease the pressure on their forces on the eastern front, especially in the Donetsk region. There, the Russians have been advancing continuously in recent months, albeit in tiny steps, and there is a real fear of the collapse of the front. On Tuesday there were reports that the Russians had indeed begun to withdraw troops from Donetsk, and transfer them to the Kursk region. If these news are confirmed, it will be an important Ukrainian achievement in itself.
It is possible to taste during the Ukrainian course the taste of Eric Sharon’s daring brilliance in October 1973: the landing on the western side of the Suez Canal. At first she was just a distraction. “Seven tanks of the enemy”, the Egyptian Chief of Staff reassured President Anwar al-Sadat. But the seven turned into seventy-seven, thousands of Israeli soldiers devoured the cards and threatened to cut off the Egyptian army. Israel’s willingness to spare the Third Army (under heavy American pressure) Made possible the ceasefire, which made possible the first interim settlement, which made possible the second interim settlement, which made possible the Camp David agreements four years later.
More life in their noses
Could something like this happen here? Could this actually be Ukraine’s intention? That she hopes to acquire tactical advantages, which will allow her a more promising start in the negotiation process? Is it possible that Vladimir Putin’s distress, or his embarrassment, will bring him to concessions, which were unthinkable before Kursk?
This can be answered with an almost complete negative. The Ukrainian breakthrough in Kursk does not threaten to collapse the front, also because it is very long (almost 1,000 km), also because Ukraine has no manpower and perhaps no weapons to defend its conquests in Kursk; and also because Russia will not show sportsmanship, thank you for losing on points, And get off the stage with a polite bow. Putin is defeated in the war he started? It is unthinkable from a political point of view, because it would endanger his very regime.
President of Russia, Vladimir Putin / photo: ap, Vyacheslav Prokofyev, Sputnik, Kremlin
It is not difficult to predict that the Kursk operation will end with a Ukrainian withdrawal. The question is how long this operation will last, and if the withdrawal will be a natural consequence of a schedule, or the result of defeat. If Kursk ends with a dignified exit, perhaps with a victory parade in the center of Kiev, it is possible that President Zelensky and his officers will feel that they have the mandate to sit down for talks on a settlement, which will give them much less than what they are asking for, but will not involve humiliation and surrender.
Even more important is the need to prove to the Western allies that there is still life in the nose of the Ukrainian army. Although the US and NATO have announced that they are fully committed to the cause of Ukraine, and will stand by it for whatever period of time it takes to expel the Russian occupier. But past experience has taught us in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan that “whatever period of time it takes” tends to be limited.
Zbang Russian and we’re done
The fear that has been going on in Europe for two and a half years is that Russia will realize its frequent nuclear and ballistic threats; And they will be realized if “red lines” are crossed. Such lines, defined or assumed, have been repeated and crossed since February 2022: advanced weapons systems, which the West has supplied to Ukraine; Gradual removal of restrictions on their use; Another expansion of NATO. Russia did not comment on the crossing of the lines. Does it see the invasion of Kursk as a crossing of a red line?
In a way, this invasion serves Putin’s needs. Apparently, it gives validity to the original justification he gave for the invasion: the danger arising from Ukraine to Russia’s security. This is admittedly a twisted logic, because it was Russia that started the war. But the distortion does not bother most Russians. Russian refugees who escaped from Kursk were heard complaining about the Ukrainians: “Why are they invading? We are fighting to free them from their Nazi government!”.
The Financial Times this week publishes operational maps of the Russian Navy, showing plans for a nuclear attack across all of Europe. “They think of it as a weapon with the potential of winning the war,” an American military expert is quoted as saying, “they will want to use this weapon, and they will want to use it quickly.” Putin because it is not enough to remind the European countries that “they are small and densely populated countries”, an ideal target for Russian swag and we are done. Are we getting there?