A blow to Ukraine? the Russian army launched a wide offensive in the Kursk region

After more than a month – the Russian army launched a large-scale counter-offensive and begins to repel the forces of the Ukrainian army that invaded the Kursk region, unofficial sources in Russia and Ukraine report in the last day. According to reports, the Russian army has managed to concentrate a large force, and is beginning to release blockades carried out by the Ukrainian army.At this point, there is still only limited information about the state of the Russian counterattack, which began on the night between Tuesday and Wednesday. A Wall Street Journal journalist based on Russian and Ukrainian military sources reported that in just 24 hours, the Russian army managed to free about a tenth of the territory that the Ukrainian army had occupied in Russia’s territory since the invasion on August 6, and noted that the liberated territory may be even larger.

A senior officer in the Russian army told the Reuters news agency yesterday that Russia managed to liberate 10 settlements occupied by Ukraine in the Kursk region in just one day. If the reports are indeed true, this is a significant blow to the Ukrainian army, which saw the occupation of the Kursk region in Russia as a strategic anchor, and factors in Kiev have signaled that the goal is to remain in the region for an extended period of time.

According to unofficial reports in recent weeks, Putin has ordered top security officials in Moscow to expel all Ukrainian forces from Kursk Oblast by October 1. In recent weeks, the Russian army has moved tens of thousands of soldiers towards the Kursk region, mainly from “dormant” and quiet fighting units in Ukraine. In Kiev they hoped that the diversion of forces would slow down the advance of the Russian army on the eastern front in the Donetsk region, but this did not happen.

The Russian army continues to advance at a significant pace in the eastern Donetsk region, increasing the pressure on two important key cities controlled by Ukraine. Chasib Yar is located a little west of the city of Bakhmut, which was occupied by Russia about a year and four months ago. Throughout the last few months, heavy fighting has been going on in the eastern outskirts of the city, and a large part of the civilian population has already been evacuated from it.

At the same time, the Russian army continues to advance towards the city of Pokrovsk, southwest of the city of Chasib Yar. Pokrovsk is considered one of the most important strategic junctions of Ukraine on the eastern front. It is estimated that the fall of the city into the hands of the Russian army will be a severe blow and will greatly harm the ability of the Ukrainian army to continue to defend other nearby points and settlements as well. The commander of the Ukrainian army Oleksandr Sirsky recently said that the Ukrainian invasion of the Kursk region did stop the Russian advance in the Pokrovsk sector, but it appears that this is only a tactical slowdown, and cannot completely stop the Russian advance towards the city.

Kursk in Russia and Donetsk in Ukraine are the two central and main systems in the war in Ukraine. Both sides are interested in improving their positions towards the month of November, when winter will begin and will make it difficult to make real progress on the ground, and the elections for the presidency of the USA, Ukraine’s main ally, will also be held.

Former President and Republican Party candidate Donald Trump repeated several times that he intends to bring about an extremely quick end to the war if he is elected. During this week’s confrontation with candidate Kamala Harris, Trump avoided answering an explicit question from the moderators if he wanted Ukraine to win the war. He said that he could bring about an end to the war “with one phone call to Putin”, but yesterday the Kremlin expressed dissatisfaction and said that “such a call will not change anything”. Harris attacked Trump for bowing down to dictators, according to her, and said that he does “see Putin as a friend, but this is a dictator who would have eaten him for lunch and would have been sitting in Kiev if he had been the president during the war.”

The US elections once again emphasize and illustrate the great importance of US aid to Ukraine. Against the background of the transfer of ballistic missiles from Iran to Russia last week, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and British Foreign Minister David Lemmy visited Kiev yesterday. According to a report in the Guardian, the move by Iran and Russia brought the The administrations in Washington and London agree in principle to Ukraine’s request to use long-range missiles of the USA and Britain against targets deep in Russian territory. According to the report, it is possible that the USA and the UK will give Ukraine the long-awaited approval, even if they do not announce it officially.

Yesterday, various media revealed satellite images of the ship that allegedly transferred the ballistic missiles from Iran to Russia – which was taken on August 29 at the port of Amirabad in Iran on the Caspian Sea, and on September 4 at the port of Port Olya in the Astrakhan district of Russia. According to a report in Sky News, the ship transferred 220 Fetah-360 ballistic missiles effective at ranges of 30-120 km. At the same time, the New York Times reported that Russia continues to receive new shipments of ballistic missiles from North Korea, and in August relatively new missiles were detected in Ukraine of a kind Hwasong-11effective for a range of up to 700 km.