The Glushkovsky part of Ukraine’s Kursk operation reflects deep knowledge of the Ostflanke. The initial points of Ukraine’s lightening advance into Kursk suggested little to nothing about the wider spread of Ukrainian control over the region.

Whoever planned the Kursk operation did so with an expect knowledge of the primary elements of an understanding the Ostflanke such as its history, its unique, often unpredictable, terrain, its elaborate, often uncrossable, heavy waterways, the unforgiving weather with its influence on movement, or its ground lines of communication both into as well as out of Russia. The selection, timing, military objectives, which are not necessarily a part of the Ostflanke but must take into consideration the primary elements, correspond with those elements in a way that is far more lethal than any previously implemented operation.

The implementation of an expert operation for the Ostflanke represents a qualitative shift in the consciousness of Ukraine’s military high command. While Ukraine continues to suffer from shortages of manpower, the Ukrainian general staff is applying its previously learned lessons to a deeper understanding of the Ostflanke in a way that is far more effective on the battlefield than in any previous year of the war.

The seizure of the Glushkovsky region, which appears to have been a latent aspect of the Kursk operation, represents the lethality of its implementation. Whereas in the initial phase of the lightening advance Ukrainians exploited infantry trained in storm, infiltration, or assault to accompany armor with closed air support from Kamikaze drones, achieving military objectives such as Suzhda on the run, the seizure of Glushkovsky is altogether a different aspect of Ukraine’s military. It is primary its long range strike capability. Ukraine therefore combined arms in separate aspects of an operation to achieve separate concerns. Ukraine separation of concerns reflects a deep knowledge of its own abilities, what can or cannot be done, within the scope of an operation.

Russia may have possession of the Glushkovsky. But Ukraine’s already in control of region. The Ukrainians have doubled the size of territory the Russians seized last year, transforming the war from a territorial stalemate, negative for Ukraine, positive for Russia, into an altogether different war. It evokes the famous epithet from Heraclitus about rivers. The Glushkovsky river the Russians trod before the Kursk operation is certainly not the one they trod now.

Ukrainian high command’s knowledge of the Ostflanke is ominous. Together with the expansion of control over a piece of territory double the size of Russia’s reclamations from this year, Ukraine has expanded the front eastward, widening the already widened front more than the Russians had to seize Vovchansk or Lipsi. The Ukrainians, who write for Pravda.ua, feigned no arrogance with descriptions of the difference. These achievements underscore that the Ukrainian high command is neither the high command from the September 2022 Kharkiv counteroffensive nor that of 2023 ‘Spring’ counteroffensive. Who are these new Ukrainians?