#Ukrainian invasion of Kursk Region

[russianreader]

The Battle of Kursk

“People to people. Let’s come together to help victims in the Kursk Region. 500 ₽. 500 ₽. Ozon Electronic Certificate of Assistance (500). Buy.” OZON Let’s come together to help the people of the Kursk Region Hello, Thomas! We have issued an Ozon electronic certificate in the amount of 500 rubles [slightly less than 5 euros, at current exchange rates] to help victims from the Kursk…

[benjaminallhope-fulltimemind]

Let it be known that Ukraine has and will continue to hold onto Russian land until Russia leaves Ukraine's internationally recognized territory. Most of all it's very telling that Putin and Russian state media had downplayed and ignored Kursk due to it being an absolute disaster for Russia, well when they aren't calling for those same Russian villages and towns to be homed into the ground. It's almost insane to think that people thought Ukraine wouldn't last a week much less several years, but never underestimate the fighting will of people opposing tyranny. Don't stop fighting until Ukraine is free!! 💛💙💛💙💛💙

[creativemedianews]

Russia expands evacuations to second border after Ukraine offensive

Russia expands evacuations to second border after Ukraine offensive #Belarusbordersecurity #Belgorodregion

[mapsontheweb]

Map of the Ukrainian invasion of the Kursk region of Russia on August 10, 12:00 pm MST

[tomorrowusa]

Sadly, a majority of Americans are almost completely ignorant about Eastern Europe. They probably don't know the difference between Budapest and Bucharest. (Spoiler: They are capitals of two non-Slavic countries in the region)

When Russia illegally annexed Crimea in 2014, Americans were surveyed on the location of Ukraine on an unlabeled map. Just 16% got it right. This map shows one dot for each response.

Yes, a couple of people thought Ukraine was in Memphis. Not sure what's up with those many folks who thought it is in Greenland. Maybe that's why Trump tried to buy it from Denmark.

In history in US classrooms almost nothing is mentioned about Eastern Europe that happened before the 20th century. This short list of items is typical.

A few (usually exotic) personalities like Ivan the Terrible, Vlad the Impaler, and Peter the Great.

Copernicus (real name: Mikołaj Kopernik) sorting out the Solar System. And that is actually more science than history.

The Siege of Vienna (1683). Vienna is not exactly in Eastern Europe but the siege was lifted by Polish King Jan III Sobieski.

A passing reference to Tsar Aleksandr II freeing the serfs – but only because it happened within two years of the Emancipation Proclamation.

So if you know almost nothing about the location and history of a country, you certainly won't understand its importance to international peace and security.

And that's the case with Ukraine which Putin sees simply as a piece in his country collection in his effort to restore the decrepit Soviet Union in all but name.

As Brendan Simms writes in his linked article up top...

It is worth reminding ourselves what is at stake. If Putin is not defeated and forced to withdraw from Ukraine, this will endanger much more than just the viability of that country. It will enable the Russians to reconstitute their forces facing the Baltic states and Finland, constituting a threat that we will have to face without support from Kyiv. The Ukrainians are thus fighting not only for their own sovereignty but our security as well. Their army is one of the best guarantors we have against future Russian aggression. All they ask is our help. We should give them what they need.

About those so called "red lines" we hear about from tankies and Trumpsters – those lines apparently don't really exist.

Robyn Dixon and Catherine Belton at the Washington Post write:

Ukraine’s resistance to Russia’s invasion keeps crossing President Vladimir Putin’s red lines. Kyiv’s lightning incursion into Kursk in western Russia this month slashed through the reddest line of all — a direct ground assault on Russia — yet Putin’s response has so far been strikingly passive and muted, in sharp contrast to his rhetoric earlier in the war. On day one of the invasion in February 2022, Putin warned that any country that stood in Russia’s way would face consequences “such as you have never seen in your entire history,” a threat that seemed directed at countries that might arm Ukraine. If Russia’s territorial integrity were threatened, “we will certainly use all the means at our disposal to protect Russia and our people. It’s not a bluff,” he said a few months later in September. “The citizens of Russia can be sure that the territorial integrity of our Motherland, our independence and freedom will be ensured — I emphasize this again — with all the means at our disposal,” making a clear reference to Russia’s nuclear weapons.

In other words, Putin has been bullshitting.

Ukraine’s Kursk incursion “proved the Russians are bluffing,” said Oleksandr Danylyuk, a former Ukrainian intelligence and defense official, now an associate fellow with the Royal United Services Institute, a think tank in London. “It shuts down all of the voices of the pseudo experts … the anti-escalation guys.”

Vladimir Putin can bluff only so much before people see that he's full of shit.💩 We're already past that point. His imperialist fantasies make him think that he's back in the Soviet Union and all he has to do is say something bellicose to get whatever he wants.

There are now Ukrainian troops on Russia's soil and over 133,000 refugees fanning out from the area telling other Russians of what's really going on near the border without censorship from Russian state media. The weaker Putin looks inside Russia, the sooner his invasion will end.

As I've said before, give Ukraine whatever weapons it wants – except nukes. Ukraine is doing NATO an enormous favor by keeping Putin at bay.

[mariacallous]

In the space of four days, the Russia-Ukraine war has dramatically shifted. The incursion of Ukrainian forces into Russia’s Kursk region has quickly turned into the largest territorial gain by either side since the successful Ukrainian counteroffensives in Kharkiv and Kherson in the fall of 2022. As of this writing, it is still unclear whether thinned-out and poorly prepared Russian forces have been able to halt the Ukrainian advance, with reports of burning columns of Russian reinforcements reminiscent of the early days of the war.

The operation demonstrates Ukraine’s ability to achieve surprise and exploit sudden breakthroughs, something at which Russia has consistently failed since the start of its invasion. It is also the first time Russia has been invaded by foreign troops since World War II, showing Russians in no uncertain terms that the bloody war they unleashed against their neighbor has come home. Ukraine’s Western supporters seem to be on board, with the White House and European Union headquarters issuing statements that it was up to Ukraine to decide on the operation.

Previously, there had been much debate in Washington, Berlin, and among a wildly speculating media about the Kremlin’s supposed red lines that would set off World War III and nuclear Armageddon, with one of the lines being taking the war to Russia with Western weapons. The latter has now occurred. The belief in uncontrolled escalation led the Biden administration and some of its partners to severely restrict both the types of weapons delivered to Ukraine and their permitted range; Ukraine has not been allowed to use Western missiles to hit military installations on the Russian side of the border, for example. Part of the effect and purpose of the Kursk operation could be to demonstrate, once again, the fallacy of the red-line argument.

As the offensive unfolds and Kyiv stays mostly mum on events, it’s still too early to say what strategic goals Ukraine is hoping to achieve. One speculation that has gained a lot of traction is that it could lead to a quicker end to the war. The operation makes it clear to Russian President Vladimir Putin that Ukraine retains significant potential to inflict pain on Russia. And if Ukrainian forces can hold on and maintain control of Russian territory—for which they appear to be digging in as they bring in more equipment and build new defensive lines—it could strengthen Ukraine’s leverage in any potential negotiations to end the war. Already, Ukraine’s lightning foray into Russia undermines the widespread idea that Putin holds all the cards to dictate the terms of a cease-fire.

Kyiv seems to be signaling that leverage in negotiations is one of the goals of the offensive. An unnamed advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told the Washington Post: “This will give them the leverage they need for negotiations with Russia—this is what it’s all about.” This dovetails with recent hints by Zelensky that Kyiv was ready to negotiate. In an interview with BBC News in July, he said, “We don’t have to recapture all the territories” by military means. “I think that can also be achieved with the help of diplomacy.” Occupied Russia could be traded for occupied Ukraine: As former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt suggested on X, “Would an idea be for both states to retreat to within their respective recognized border?”

If Kyiv seems to be preparing the ground for potential negotiations—by seeking to strengthen its hand and publicly declaring its willingness—it is also a response to several factors.

One is growing war weariness among the Ukrainian population. Although the majority of Ukrainians favor fighting on until all the territories Russia has occupied since 2014 are liberated, the number saying that Ukraine could trade some of that territory for peace has been rising.

Second, there has been growing criticism, particularly in Western Europe and the global south, of the way Ukraine has repeatedly ruled out talks with Moscow. Major substantive issues aside, with the Kremlin apparently back-channeling openness to talks, Kyiv risked being seen as intransigent in preventing an early end to the war.

Finally, Ukraine’s strategic position is risky, even if it holds back Russia and maintains the flow of Western weapons. A victory by Donald Trump in the November U.S. presidential election and a sudden stop of U.S. aid cannot be ruled out, and even a Harris administration may have trouble cobbling together future support packages if the Republicans keep their majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. Zelensky may have decided to gamble to change and accelerate the dynamics of the war, including greater leverage if negotiations end up taking place sooner than anticipated.

Without much leverage, Kyiv has had to appeal to moral, normative, and legal arguments when communicating with its foreign partners about any peace short of full liberation. In the past, this has led to highly skewed negotiations. In the talks that produced the Minsk I and II accords in 2014 and 2015, Ukraine had such a weak hand that it had to agree to impossible terms: It could only get the Russian-controlled Donbas back if it allowed Moscow’s proxies to become part of the Ukrainian polity through local elections manipulated by the Kremlin, which would have given Moscow a permanent veto over Kyiv’s politics. Previously occupied and annexed Crimea was not even included in the discussion.

In March 2022, direct talks between Ukraine and Russia on the Belarusian border were not a negotiation but Russia’s delivery of surrender terms to Ukraine. In April 2022, negotiations brokered by Turkey in Istanbul also went nowhere: Russia’s price for ending its invasion was a considerable limitation of Ukrainian sovereignty and ability to defend itself. Since then, Russia’s proposal has been for Ukraine to permanently cede, in addition to Crimea, Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson oblasts—including substantial parts that Russia has never occupied.

Not only has Ukraine lacked negotiation leverage, but Russia has also been successful in promoting, to audiences around the world, its land-for-peace approach to ending this round of the war. As Ukrainian counteroffensives after 2022 largely failed and the Russian war machine slowly but steadily took more territory in Ukraine’s east, another Minsk-type deal limiting Ukrainian territorial integrity and political sovereignty seemed to loom on the horizon.

Kyiv has not only changed the military narrative on the ground but may also be trying to change the narrative on negotiations—from a “land for peace” deal to a “land for land” deal. This puts Putin in a bind: Loss of control over parts of Russia proper is an enormous embarrassment for the Kremlin. But since their illegal annexation by Russia, the Ukrainian territories Putin seeks to keep are also part of the state territory he is obliged to defend. That said, in terms of Russian elite and popular perception, the restoration of Russia’s legitimate state territory will take precedence over continued occupation of recently conquered domains—especially if a land swap opens an avenue to the end of Western sanctions.

In a way, the new Ukrainian strategy may provide an opening for doves in the Russian leadership—assuming they exist and have any influence over Putin—to argue that the annexations should be reversed in order to restore Russia’s territorial integrity. As long as Ukraine can hold on to its captured territories in Russia, there will a strong pressure on Putin to return them under Moscow’s control.

None of this, however, changes the most fundamental problem with a negotiated outcome: the fact that Russia has ignored just about every agreement it has signed with Ukraine. But for Ukrainians and their Western supporters hoping for an end to the war, some intriguing possibilities may soon be on the table.

[blueiscoool]

100+ Russian soldiers killed.

The Ukrainian Army has obliterated a Russian military column of 12 trucks bringing infantry reinforcements to the Russian Kursk region in an attempt to stop the Ukrainian invasion.

They were ambushed in the Rylsky district.

[darkmaga-returns]

I have been warning that our Computer has projected that war will continue and that the Neocons are traitors to the people of the United States and a threat to the entire world. Biden, the senile one, will sign anything put in front of him, and he is incompetent to be president. For that matter, so is Kamala. Both threaten the National Security of our nation and the world. Putin is justified to start attacking the United States directly. Since he knows Trump is coming, he will try to sit on his hands. God help us if the Russian Neocons overthrow Putin. There will be no stopping this.

The Russian Foreign Ministry recently came out reminding the collective West that allowing Ukraine to use west-supplied, long-range missiles to attack deep into the interior Russia would make the collective West “parties to the conflict” because those long-range missiles require satellites to guide them to target.  The Foreign Ministry reminded everyone that Ukraine does not HAVE any satellites. This is precisely what the Neocons are hoping for. Zelensky has abandoned defending the Donbas and switched to invade Russia on orders from the Neocons. They hoped Putin would attack anything in NATO. Now that Trump is president-elect and he has rejected all Neocons from his cabinet, they are desperate, and this is their next step to force Putin to attack anything so they can claim he started World War III when it has been the West under their control.

The Neocon propaganda is that Biden has authorized the first use of U.S.-supplied long-range missiles by Ukraine to strike inside Russia and then claim it will only be for short-range in defense of Ukrainian forces in the Kursk region of western Russia, the officials said. Let’s face the truth. Ukraine cannot defeat Russia, and this is all a ploy to weaken Russia for the NATO invasion.

[beastblade69]

I've just seen a russian who was talking about "ThAt Is NoT ThAT PlAiN As UkRaInIaNs SAy" saying taht "BuT UkRaInIaNs ArE boMbInG KuRsK AnD beLgORoD". you are a fucking scum and I won't be taking my words back. I will never take them back because russians are a biological waste. and here's why the shit she said isn't a valid point in an argument (claiming that russia is not that bad):

1. they've invaded our territories back in 2014 and occupied crimea (do I have to mention that they've deported crimean native people away from their homeland in 1944 and then passed crimea into ukrainian ussr's hands because all russia's brought there was sorrow and destruction?) and have also invaded donetsk and luhansk regions which then became the first combat zones of russian invasion in ukraine. that's when the war's actually started

2. they planned to "take kIEv over in 3 days" but obviously they failed. and when they realised that it was over for them they started murdering civilians as they were fleeing from a battlefield. we didn't plan on taking moscow over or smth. in fact we just don't need their swamps lands, we want to live on our land without the constant fear of being killed. but they obviously are obsessed with occupying more and more territories (while they can't even provide a mediocre level of life on the lands they already have stolen)

3. I don't really see western zoo & eco activists talking about it, but russia's committed an ecocide somewhere around a year ago by blowing up a nova kakhovka dam. many people (esp elderly people) and animals died. they drowned in their own houses

4. let's not forget that russia is actively destroying ukrainian fields too. and ukraine was a massive exporter of wheat to the whole europe and even africa

5. russia is bombing kharkiv, odesa and several more regions that are located near an active battlefield zone daily. kharkiv's electric infrastructure is destroyed to the point that they cannot produce electricity for themselves so all of the other regions of ukraine are having their electricity turned off for several hours several times a day. daily. in order to help ppl in kharkiv

6. and let's not stay silent about people on the occupied territories. I often write about this because this is truly horrifying. ukrainian schools are totally banned, instead education is in russian, russian propaganda is being put into ukrainian children's heads, they turn on a russian hymn in those schools every day. and the kids truly hate that. I've seen stories of teachers who teach online and some children from occupied territories are their students. so these students have to catch the internet somewhere on the roof of a barn in the middle of the night just to learn IN UKRAINIAN. why at night? because if they get busted while learning in ukrainian they'd be taken away from their parents and placed into foster families somewhere in russia. same goes for publicly speaking in ukrainian. and that's just the top of the iceberg because too much terrible shit is happening in ukrainian regions occupied by russia

7. the way russians treat our war prisoners (soldiers and civilian captives). beating up, raping, torturing, killing, starving. that's what they do. ukrainians, on the other hand, keep all the war prisoners (soldiers only obviously) according to the international law. the worst thing we can do to them is humiliate them on the internet (tho it's happened only once or twice with certain individuals)

that's not all but that's enough. and if it's not enough for you to become more loyal towards ukrainians I have some bad news for you

[nando161mando]

🇷🇺 #Russia: Russian troops filmed surrendering to the Ukrainian military in Russia’s Kursk Region. #Ukraine is currently carrying out a cross-border incursion into the region, a move that surprised both the Russian military and Ukraine’s allies abroad. The attack marks one of the largest Ukrainian assaults on Russian territory since the Russian invasion began.

[head-post]

Land for land: how Ukraine violated UN Charter with Kursk incursion, alarming message to Global South

Europe is getting dragged into the war in Ukraine, while EU and US officials endorse Ukraine’s incursion into the Kursk region. Kyiv’s actions violate the UN Charter and send an alarming signal to the global South about the double standard policy.

The incursion of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) into the Kursk region, Russia, was a daring gamble for the country’s military commanders, who deployed their limited resources on a risky offensive with no guaranteed success, AP News reported.

After initial signs of progress, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky broke the silence and outlined the interim results of Kyiv’s efforts. By Wednesday, Ukrainian officials claimed that the army allegedly controlled at least 74 minor settlements. However, a week after the Kursk invasion began, the overall purpose of the military operation remains unclear.

Military experts split in their opinions: some say that Ukraine will entrench itself in the positions it has already occupied, whereas others claim that the AFU will continue its active offensive without the intended end goal. However, the incursion has already affected the protracted standoff.

By attacking the Kursk region, Ukraine has reportedly brought in a lot of scarce equipment and manpower, resulting in weakened positions in other areas where active fighting is taking place. In the Pokrovsk and Toretsk directions, Russian troops are breaking through the defences of the AFU, according to Ukrainian media. The Russians are rushing towards Pokrovsk, a key strategic hub.

In Niu-York, formerly Novhorodske, Russia advanced by almost 1.5 kilometres. Fighting continues in Hrodivka, Zhuravka, and along the railway towards Novohrodivka and Mykolaivka, Donetsk region. To the south, in the Vuhledar area, Russian forces are also attacking, breaking through to the major O0532 road and menacing to take the city of Vuhledar.

UN Charter violated, talks derailed

Having launched the incursion into the Kursk region, Ukraine has in fact violated Article 2, paragraph 4, of the UN Charter, which prohibits the forceful border violation of other States.

All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.

Previously, the Ukrainian authorities were actively accusing Russia of attacking the territory of another state, but now Kyiv is making the same move. Furthermore, President Zelensky derailed the possibility of negotiations in the near future, which Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Ukraine was ready for and which had been actively promoted by international mediators.

According to The Independent, Mykhailo Podolyak, the top aide to the Ukrainian president, stated that the invasion served as a tool to “coerce” Russia into peace talks.

We need to use absolutely clear tools to coerce Russia [into negotiation]. One of them is a military instrument of coercion. That is, we need to inflict significant tactical defeats on Russia, in addition to economic and diplomatic tools. In the Kursk region, we are seeing the optimisation of this military tool of coercion to force Russia into the negotiation process.

However, Russian President Vladimir Putin has already declared that the possibility of negotiations is lost after the incursion into the Kursk region.

The intrusion is moving into its second week, but the reaction of international observers is already raising questions. A senior US defence official revealed that Kyiv allegedly did not inform Washington of a long-term plan after the start of the incursion, according to Defense One.

We didn’t get any advanced notification. What the Ukrainians were able to do was operational security, and that is something that I think we should be giving credit for. It definitely surprised the Russians.

According to the official, the Pentagon is “asking the Ukrainians what their real intent is, kind of long term, and how it plays into future negotiations.” However, there has been no statement that Ukraine’s actions violate the UN Charter on international borders, nor has there been any condemnation.

The global community does not seem intent on imposing sanctions on Kyiv, whereas Moscow faces multiple packages of sanctions for exactly the same actions against Ukraine.

Read more HERE

[benjaminallhope-fulltimemind]

after two long years Ukraine is making major gains even after a massive slog in the south, it's the first major land invasion of Russia since the second world war! The funny thing is that Ukraine is abiding by international standards and not committing war crimes, not only that but there has been no major protests nir armed resistance against Ukraine troops in the kurk region and my best guest is that any people who would have fought are evacuating but then why wouldn't they do anything something like Ukraine citizens did during the invasion of their territory? With all that said however this is a major advantage for Ukraine for PR and negotiations, any talk going forward are no longer about begging but real negotiations since Russia risks losing territory. Wjth the November US election this kursk offensive this might also impact military aid in a positive way, despite pro-russia pundits crying about Ukraine's use of western weapons.

[a-modernmajorgeneral]

Earlier this week, reports began filtering in that Ukrainian forces had entered Russia’s Kursk province, in what many analysts assumed was a small cross-border raid—of a sort that Ukraine has attempted a few times since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. But as the hours and days ticked by and Ukrainian forces moved deeper and deeper into Russian territory, the seriousness of the military operation became obvious. The Ukrainians spread out as they went along, and had soon seized more ground from Russia in a few days than Russia has taken during an offensive in the Kharkiv region that began in the spring. As part of the new incursion, Ukraine has been deploying advanced armored vehicles, including German-supplied Marder infantry fighting vehicles—a striking development, given the unease among Kyiv’s allies about being seen as escalating hostilities between the West and Russia.

The initial success of what’s looking more and more like a full offensive shows what the Ukrainians can achieve if they have both the tools and the latitude to fight Russia. Ukraine’s most generous benefactors, especially the United States and Germany, have previously expressed their strong opposition to the use of their arms on Russian soil. In May, the U.S. made an exception, allowing Ukraine to use American equipment to hit back on Russian-based targets involved in the attack on Kharkiv. Still, the broader prohibition limited Kyiv’s military options.

Now Washington and Berlin may be softening their positions more than they’re explicitly saying. A Pentagon spokesperson said Thursday that U.S. officials still “don’t support long-range attacks into Russia” but also that the Kursk incursion is “consistent with our policy.” Perhaps President Joe Biden, freed of electoral considerations, can focus more on how best to help the Ukrainians now—and limit the damage that Donald Trump could do to their cause if he wins in November. The White House’s notably bland statement on the Ukrainian offensive on Wednesday was hardly the sign of an administration in panic.

Clearly, Kyiv has been biding its time. Its planning for the current offensive took place quietly—and amid many pessimistic assessments of its military prospects by outside analysts and claims that it should save its forces for combat in the Donbas. The weakness of Russian defense is in some sense shocking—but was also completely predictable because of the way Ukraine has been asked to fight. Its allies’ apprehension about taking the war to Russian territory has provided Vladimir Putin with a major asymmetrical advantage. The Russians have been able to send almost all of their troops into Ukraine itself, safe in the knowledge that Ukraine’s own partners were securing Russian territory from attack.

Moscow simply took the U.S. and Germany too much at their word. Russian forces seem to have kept only substandard troops at the border, and the fortifications in the Kursk area have so far presented few problems for the Ukrainians. The lack of Russian internal defenses first became obvious last summer, when the former Putin confidant Yevgeny Prigozhin mutinied and directed an armed force to march toward Moscow, and apparently only small improvements have been made since. “Between countries at war, there is no border, there is only the front,” the Ukrainian analyst Mykola Bielieskov told me. “The Russians have forgotten that—the Ukrainians did not.”

Andriy Zagorodnyuk, a former Ukrainian defense minister who now leads the Center for Defense Strategies, a Ukraine-based think tank, described five potential motivations for the new offensive: diverting Russian forces from other fronts, particularly near Kharkiv; discouraging further Russian cross-border attacks into Ukraine by showing that Russia’s own borders are unprotected; showing the rest of the world that, despite its size, the Russian army is weaker than it appears; testing out new military tactics; and taking the initiative away from the Russian side. The larger question is how far the Ukrainians want to expand their current offensive.

Throughout this war, widespread electronic surveillance by both sides has frequently tipped each off about the other’s plans. But in recent weeks, Kyiv built up the necessary forces so stealthily that the Russians had no idea what was going to hit them. The Ukrainians apparently carefully arranged for drones and computer hackers to suppress Russian resistance once their soldiers crossed the border. In three days, they came close to seizing the Russian city of Sudzha, through which runs a key rail line close to the Ukrainian border.

Notably, the U.S. and German governments have not publicly opposed any of this. Perhaps the two allies are no longer as nervous about cross-border operations as they were. Maybe the U.S. has finally come to understand that if Ukraine really is going to have a chance to win, it must be allowed to fight the war properly.

The real answer, of course, is that no one outside the Ukrainian government really knows what is happening—and, so far, Kyiv has been extremely tight-lipped on this operation. Having kept it quiet before it started, the last thing the Ukrainians want to do is let Russia know their intention. Whatever happens, the Kursk offensive has been a well-executed operation to this point. It’s their plan. Let them see to it.

[gurutrends]

Ukraine fears invasion by North Korea

According to Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukrainian intelligence, nearly 11,000 North Korean troops will be ready to fight in Ukraine by November 1. Mr. Budanov revealed that more than 2,500 troops have already been deployed in the Russian regions of Kursk and Bryansk, where Ukrainian forces made significant gains last August. Ukrainian troops still control several localities in these regions. “We do…

[tomorrowusa]

Putin is trying to pass off North Korean troops fighting in the Russian army as members of the Buryat ethnic group in Siberia.

It's already suspected that Putin is giving North Korea missile technology in return for ammunition and other military supplies. Apparently troops from North Korea are also part of the deal. Unfortunately for Putin, they seem to be as useless as his own troops.

The Suspiline report citing Ukrainian intelligence sources says that 18 North Korean soldiers fled their positions somewhere on the border between the Bryansk and Kursk regions of Russia, just 7 kilometers (4.4 miles) from the state border with Ukraine. The source said the reason for them absenting themselves is not known but it said Russian forces were currently hunting them while the commanders in the area were trying to cover up the incident and to hide it from higher command. The incident comes just a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin put forward a request to ratify the treaty for a “comprehensive strategic partnership” between the Russian Federation and North Korea, which had been signed on June 19 during Putin’s visit to the DPRK.

Claiming that North Koreans are actually Buryats is quite a stretch. Buryats have a generally East Asian appearance which might fool people in Europe. But once they speak or write, the similarity disappears.

Buryat is related to Mongolian and uses the Cyrillic alphabet. Korean is rather unique and uses its own homegrown phonetic script. They don't sound or look anything alike.

The report of these soldiers being absent without leave (AWOL) also coincided with other intelligence reports that up to 3,000 North Korean combat troops were being trained to form a “special Buryat battalion” at the base of the 11th Separate Air Assault Brigade of the Russian army at Sosnovy Bor near Ulan Ude in Buryatia. The reports say the unit is currently being provided with weapons and equipment. A Ukrainian milblogger, Igor Sushko, said on X / Twitter on Tuesday that the North Korean troops were being issued with Russian military identity cards identifying them as Buryats. The Buryatia Republic is situated in eastern Siberia, where its indigenous people have an Asian appearance. Andrei Kovalenko, head of Ukraine’s Center for Countering  Disinformation, commented that integrating North Korean military personnel into Russian forces was likely to be complicated by the language barrier: “Less than 1% of the cadre officers in the North Korean army are proficient in Russian. Understanding this is crucial for examining the potential future involvement of these troops with the Russian armed forces. “Although Russia might utilize North Korean soldiers initially in the Kursk region, there’s a possibility that several tens of thousands could eventually be deployed to Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories alongside Buryat counterparts,” Kovalenko added.

It would be interesting to hear how the Buryats and North Koreans are getting along in Russia. The Buryats have every right to resent that Putin is trying to pass off North Koreans as Buryats.

The attempt to include North Korean troops with the Russian forces in the Ukraine invasion is another indication that Russia is getting short of troops.

New York Magazine recently featured a lengthy interview with Michael Kofman of the Carnegie Institute called Ukraine War: Why Russia is in More Trouble Than It Looks.

A relevant excerpt...

Russia’s advantage has been the ability to withstand very high levels of attrition because of the materiel and manpower resources they have, and also their significant capacity for mobilization of resources on a national scale — that is, defense industrial production, manpower recruitment, and the like. But Russia’s actually operating under very significant constraints. And if anything, its advantage on the battlefield is likely to decline as we get into this winter and look further ahead into 2025. First, in terms of equipment, the Russian military has been sustaining very high levels of loss that are principally being replaced by Soviet-era stocks — not entirely, but at this stage, Russia is eating through its Soviet legacy, and its rate of equipment production is quite low relative to the numbers being lost on the battlefield. This doesn’t mean that Russia is going to run out of armored fighting vehicles. What it does mean is that the Russian military has increasingly been forced to adjust tactics to minimize their losses, and that also reduces their ability to achieve any operationally meaningful breakthroughs. When you look at manpower, the Russian government has significantly increased the payouts and benefits to recruit personnel. The reason for that is straightforward. It’s clear that at this rate of loss, the Russian contract recruitment campaign is unable to keep up. This too does not mean that Russia is going to run out of manpower, but it’s clear that they’re struggling, and they are not likely to be able to sustain this pace of operations, staying on the offensive with this rate of loss.

Russia has apparently already been trying to recruit mercenaries in Syria and possibly even Africa. The quality of foreign troops in Russia has been rather uneven. That 18 North Korean troops have gone AWOL and may be trying to escape to Ukraine is an indication that importing fighters from abroad is not going well for Putin.

[mariacallous]

For two weeks now, soldiers of what Russian President Vladimir Putin considers a “Nazi regime” have been pouring over the border in the first foreign occupation of Russia since World War II. Putin and his propaganda apparatus, from the media to schools to the scholars rewriting history books, have been drumming up this moment: the great threat to Russia’s very survival on par with the real Nazi invasion in 1941. No matter where they live or what they do, Russians cannot escape the constant barrage of World War II allegories beckoning them to mobilize against any invader.

Yet the response of most Russians to Ukraine’s offensive into Kursk, now entering its third week, has been a passive, fatalistic shrug.

Indeed, Ukraine’s occupation of around 1,000 square kilometers of sacred Russian soil—which Putin’s forces are still struggling to contain—has popped numerous bubbles in Russia and, by extension, in the West’s perception of the regime’s strength and motivations for waging the war.

The first bubble to pop was the Kremlin’s decadeslong propaganda about the supposed existential threat to Russia emanating from Ukraine. As Johns Hopkins international relations professor Eugene Finkel rhetorically asked on X: “By the way, have you noticed the wave of nationalist fervor and mobilization washing over Russia in response to a military invasion?” On the contrary, there has been no massive public outcry, no spontaneous formation of militias, and no long lines of volunteers at the recruitment offices. The Russian military now offers absurdly enormous sign-up bonuses amounting to more than the average Russian’s annual salary, or there would be no takers at all. No impassioned speeches have rallied Russians to the motherland’s defense, and no banners with patriotic slogans adorn Moscow’s streets. The Kremlin has not even ordered a general mobilization to fend off the invasion. Meanwhile, the Russian government’s chief spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, couldn’t even be bothered to interrupt his vacation.

Most Russian anger is directed against Moscow, not the supposed Nazis from Kyiv. Kremlin-controlled pollsters have been registering a sharp uptick in dissatisfaction with the government. Much of that anger is coming from the Kursk region’s residents, including more than 100,000 people who fled the fighting. Many of them complained about being abandoned and neglected by their local authorities and Moscow. To the great disappointment of patriotic bloggers, no one in Kursk has resisted, joined partisan groups, or even protested against the occupiers, as happened in innumerable places in Ukraine. All over Russia, mothers of conscripts are protesting against their untrained sons being deployed in an active war zone. For those who care to look, social media and messaging channels are full of videos showing mass surrenders of Russian soldiers, many of them inexperienced teenage conscripts.

But the rest of the Russian public, whether due to self-preservation, “learned helplessness,” or some other reason, doesn’t seem to care either way whether a part of Russia is now foreign-occupied or not. Russians seem to grasp that, contrary to their own propaganda, Ukrainians aren’t trying to destroy Russia but only get their country back. Even pro-war television pundits point out that Kyiv could use occupied areas of Russia in a land-for-land trade—in other words, they correctly see the incursion as part of a strategy to evict Russia from Ukraine, not to threaten Russia itself.

The second bubble Ukraine’s incursion has popped is Putin’s image as an authoritarian leader, which is built on strength, order, and the promise to make Russia great again. His evident inability to defend the country’s borders makes Putin, who has tied his reign to the restoration of Russia’s lost empire, look weak.

Putin has almost disappeared from public view as the Kremlin attempts to downplay the invasion. On the Kremlin’s official website, announcements in stilted bureaucratese seem designed to normalize a code-red event. In a speech to the Russian Security Council, Putin euphemistically referred to the invasion as a “counterterrorist situation.” In calling on local authorities in Kursk to deal with the “situation” and otherwise remaining mostly absent, Putin appears eager to distance himself from the chaos at the border.

Russian state television took several days before making Kursk its top news story—but never interrupted its regular entertainment programming. The news reports added another dash of absurdity, as the Russian army’s supposed victories kept happening closer and closer to Moscow before finally slowing down last week.

In the TV talk shows, prominent pundits have been tearing at the propaganda edifice. One proposed “sacrificing” Russia’s border regions to Ukraine—hardly a vision of strength. Another called on the leadership to stop the lies and be more honest about military setbacks, while a third wanted strict censorship to shield the populace from embarrassments. For a Kremlin-controlled media apparatus, the cacophony was a refreshing absence of the usual coordinated messaging. On Telegram channels, where Kremlin control doesn’t reach as far, there has been even more candor.

Third, by taking the war to Russian territory, Ukraine has popped the bubble of the Kremlin threats to escalate the war, based on the idea that Russia’s existence—rather than Ukraine’s—was somehow at stake. The supposed threat from NATO is no longer a talking point. Russia has not called on its own defense alliance, the Collective Security Treaty Organization, as one would expect if its existence were at stake. And there has been surprisingly little screaming about German-built tanks advancing in Kursk, where the largest tank battle of World War II took place.

In 2016, Putin infamously claimed that Russia’s borders don’t end anywhere. Today, it turns out that they don’t begin at any particular point, either. This is perhaps the most significant result of Ukraine���s incursion into Russian territory. So far, each of Putin’s threats, including nuclear ones, have turned out to be hollow—not even Russia’s actual border seems to be a “red line.” Thus, another bubble Kursk has popped is the Western theory of escalation and red lines that make Russia look much stronger and more resolute than it really is.

Finally, the invasion punctures the notion that Russians collectively support the war, just because government-sponsored polls say so. It appears that most just take their cue from Putin: In case of trouble, just ignore it and hope it goes away.