The Ukrainians, whose forces sought advances in the southeast in villages such as Gir’i, succeeded with taking full control of Sudzha, the geopolitically strategic center of the Kursk operation. One of the Ukrainian military bloggers, whose posts are quoted in both the West as well as the ‘global South,’ DeepStateUA, announced the following: Сили Оборони звільнили місто Суджа, що на Курщині. The blogger added, saying: “З початку доби в Курській області взяли в полон понад 100 військових рф, є просування на 1-2 км. Завершено пошук та знищення противника в місті Суджа.” — Головнокомандувач Сирський.”
In other developments on the fronts in Kursk, Ukraine lost one of the British Challenger II tanks Great Britain donated more than a year ago. The reporting by Forbes on these tanks shifted significantly from before to after the Ukrainian ‘Spring’ offensive. Forbes, the business magazine responsible for ratings on billionaires [1], [2], published in article on May 31st, 2023 describing how “Ukraine’s Challenge 2 Tanks Can Plow Right Through Russian Fortifications.” The Challenger underwent changes such as those detailed in an article published with the following title on September 23rd, 2023: “The Challenger 2 Tank Has A Lot Of Armor. The Ukrainians Added More.” The Challenger II, however, might have received more praise than its due in another article, “Ukraine’s ‘Huge And Loud’ Challenger 2 Tanks Hide In Treelines, Lob Shells At Russian Fortifications Two Miles Away.” Published on February 1st, 2024, extolling the virtues of the tank as removed from the front but repurposed as self-propelled artillery, the article foreshadowed the Challenger II’s inevitable fate. In light of numerous assessments after the failed Ukrainian counteroffensive, Forbes published another article on March 27th of this year, changing its point of view altogether: “The British Challenge 2 is the Wrong Tank for Ukraine.”
Russian bloggers from the channel Северный Ветер published photos of the tank’s destruction in Kursk but did not identify the tank. [3] A blogger, who posted images of the tank’s fume extractor together with the TOGS II thermal housing on the turret’s roof, identified the tank.[4] The destruction of Ukrainian tanks like the Challenger II identified by military bloggers indicate that Ukraine’s utilization of its existing stocks of armor have contributed to the full mechanization of its lightening advance into Kursk, underscoring the importance of armor in the 21st century.
Reports throughout social media blogging platforms like Twitter show pictures of Russian soldiers, armor, or armored recovery vehicles hauling large amounts of military equipment out of the Donbas towards Ukrainian occupied Kursk. The New York Times, for instance, published an article today, confirming that “Russia Moves Some Troops From Ukraine to Fight Incursion, Kyiv and U.S. Say.”
The New York Times‘ article is on a scale slightly lower than the louder articles published in the Western press. Politico, for instance, published an article yesterday (i.e., August 13th, 2024), declaring how “Putin pulls units out of Ukraine to defend Russia, Kyiv says.” The existing evidence, which neither the New York Times nor Politico mention in detail, does not appear to support the claim that Russia is pulling out of Ukraine; the evidence suggests a far more nuanced conclusion. Existing evidence suggests that Russia is pulling some but not all of its units out of the Donbas.
Although neither newspaper details which Russian units Russia redeployed from the Donbas to Kursk, the scant information on social media provides a few clues. There are two pieces of information from pictures. The first is in a picture Ukrainian military bloggers uploaded from the seizure of a command post in Kursk, a flag 28th battalion of Russia’s 60th motorized rifle brigade is visible. The 28th battalion of Russia’s 60th motorized rifle brigade previously deployed in the Bakhmut-Artemovsk direction in Chasiv Yar. In another post the Интернациональная бригада «Пятнашка», which is a part of the 1st Donetsk Army Corps, appears in pictures from Kursk. The Donetsk’s People’s Republic’s «Пятнашка»’s previous deployment occurred in Chasiv Yar. These two pieces of information suggest that the majority of Russia’s Donbas redeployments have been from Chasiv Yar and/or the Bakhmut-Artemovsk direction (i.e., just one part of the Donbas). This confirms what the New York Times states generally but is a far more nuanced conclusion.
It also confirms what the author said initially about the Kursk operation. The Kursk operation is partly an operation to shape the battlefield in the Donbas. The Ukrainians believes that by opening a new front, a 1,000 square kilometers in all of captured territory [5], Russia would react by redeploying its units from the Donbas to Kursk, thereby alleviating the pressure Ukrainians felt in the Donas. While it is too early to assess the overall impact, this part of the Kursk operation has been partially successful. It has resulted in redeployments from Chasiv Yar to Kursk. It is unclear at this point, however, how much alleviation these redeployments have provided Ukrainians in the Donbas.
Based on those two aforementioned pieces of information, it appears that Russia has limited the prioritization of its removal of Russian units from the Donbas strictly to the Bakhmut-Artemovsk direction. If so, the underlying logic of this decision is likely twofold. Progress in Chasiv Yar is slow going; a breakthrough in the Bakhmut-Artemovsk direction is more dependent upon the southern fronts at Toretsk and Avdiivka than Chasiv Yar. It is likely that Russia views the removal of its Chasiv Yar units to have little to no impact on battlefield developments. The war analysts who believe in the ‘three levels’ of warfare would say the following: “It is unlikely that Russia’s removal of units from Chasiv Yar will have an impact on Russia’s operations in that village; it is unlikely to disrupt Russia’s ‘tactical’ gains. Russia’s overall strategy of grinding, human wave assaults remains.”
Neither newspaper, however, appeared to address the other side of Kursk as a shaping operation. A significant amount of information on the voice of Russian parents, expressing concern over broken promises not to deploy their children to the front, have appeared in social media, especially from the Russian language based news agency, Агенство Новости. There are so many that there is really no need to cite sources. These reports indicate a domestic political fallout from Russia’s decision to deploy lightly trained, hardly equipped, experientially deficient young Russians to Kursk. If so, the domestic political fallout is severely negative, an altogether different dimension of Kursk as a shaping operation. Russia appears to have largely contained the fallout, limiting that part of Kursk as a successful shaping operation.In addition, there are reports describing Russia’s decision to move troops from the Kaliningrad region to Kursk a “Demilitarization of East Prussia.” It is has not been ‘demilitarized,’ as multiple weapon stations are still in operation throughout Kaliningrad. A more appropriate term is required.
Since these soldiers are not and have not yet been deployed to Ukraine proper, the phenomenon, which is easily distinguished from redeployment, as mentioned above, ought to be called ‘displacement.’ The conscripts assigned domestically to a barracks or base that are suddenly reassigned to a front are ‘displaced.’ Displacement is therefore one of the consequence of Kursk as a shaping operation.
In terms of Kyiv’s own decisions and their impact on the Donbas, the Ukrainian Armed Forces allegedly transferred many units from the frontlines in the Donbas for the Kursk operation. In at least one instance, Ukraine transferred part of the 95th Airborne Assault Brigade to the Kursk direction, whose main units are now defending Toretsk. It is unclear how ‘splitting’ Ukraine brigades, many of which are already in a state of continuous reconstitution like the 47th Mechanized Brigade, helps Ukraine’s overall situation for the war. The removal of part of the 95th from the Toretsk front likely degraded the brigade’s overall combat effectiveness.
Taken together these first three consequences of Kursk as a shaping operation appear to have provided NATO with a view for the types of behavior a NATO invasion might expect from Russia, should NATO ever enter directly into the Ukraine war.
Toretsk and Avdiivka, two directions south of Bakhmut-Artemovsk, continue to witness significant advances, especially in the Avdiivka direction, which is most recently renamed the Pokrovsk direciton. The most recent reports indicate that Russia has continued to close the gap on the distance from the frontline to the so-called Versorgunsweg, the T0504 road which connects the agglomeration of villages around Pokrovsk to that around Chasiv Yar.
According to Russia’s RTArabic, Russia recently ‘liberated’ a new village in the Pokrovsk direction. The fact Russia has continued its advances in the hottest directions of the Donbas such as the Avdiivka/Pokrovsk and Toretsk directions necessarily limits the success of Kursk as a shaping operation at least in terms of a preliminary assessment. With the Kursk operation no less than a week from its initiation, the overall impact of Kursk as a shaping operation may have far more impact than now.
At least in terms of Ukraine’s seizure of Sudzha, that part of the Kursk operation remains a complete success. Ukrainians expanded control over Sudzha to cover the entire village after the extreme close combat in battles for Martynovka and Gir’i, both located around Sudzha. Although Ukraine lost the battles in these two villages, Ukraine expanded its control over Sudzha.
In a report published by TASS in Russian entitled, “Алаудинов заявил о серьезном ударе ВС РФ по ВСУ в Мартыновке,” the authors provided the following summary of the battle for Martynovka: “Массированная атака со стороны ВСУ на Курскую область началась 6 августа. На территории региона неоднократно объявлялась ракетная опасность. В результате атаки, по последним данным, погибли 12 гражданских лиц, ранен 121 человек, в том числе 10 детей. 69 пострадавших находятся в больницах, состояние 17 из них оценивается как тяжелое. Из приграничных районов Курской области выехали или были эвакуированы более 120 тыс. человек. По информации Минобороны РФ, Киев с начала боевых действий на курском направлении потерял до 2 030 военнослужащих, 35 танков и 31 бронетранспортер.”
The Sudzha gas terminal is a metering station, handling more than half of the gas Russia transits through Ukrainian hosted pipelines to the European Union with endpoints most importantly in both Slovakia as well as Hungary, two landlocked, staunch, pro-Russia NATO allies, political thorns in U.S.-led NATO’s geopolitical interests with the Ukraine war. Control over the pipeline empowers Kyiv with the ability to leverage gas at the meter rather than the pipeline to both of those countries, the overall amount of gas for which amounts to 5% of the European Union’s imports of cheap Russian gas.
The fact that the Sudzha gas terminal is quantifiable in a way that none of its previous military objectives were or are provides Ukraine with an advantage for negotiations. In terms of its quantifiability, Gazprom, which is virtually a stated owned, operated, or controlled entity with fully elastic figureheads, earns nearly $160- $165 million EBITDA per year, nearly ¼ of its export income, from the meter at the gas terminal. Russia is not concerned about the viability of the publicly traded company anymore than it is about the figureheads who pull levers at its pumps.
Ukraine’s expanded control over the gas terminal empowers its with the ability to demand a Donbas concession in the amount of $165 million over the course of fifty to hundred years (which is the benchmark for changing borders in territories), which is the overall length of time Ukraine expects to lose control over the Russian occupied parts of the Donbas.
If, for instance, a given portion of the territory in the Donbas represents $16 trillion dollars worth of raw materials, then Ukraine can request an exchange of that portion or a part of that portion of the territory in the Donbas for control over the Sudzha gas terminal. In no previous acquisition of a military objective such as the valueless Tokmak from the failed Ukrainian ‘Spring’ counteroffensive could Ukraine ever stake such a claim.
Those hypothetical exchanges are purely in terms of real numbers. Ukraine could enhance the amount by way of reference to its new leverage over Slovakia or Hungary, pro-Russian allies. It is hard to compute in real number just how important in terms of monetary value these two allies are to Russia. Ukraine’s continued and expanded control over the Sudzha gas terminal is therefore a multidimensional checkmate of a profound geopolitic array.
[1] – [Forbes list of world’s richest people highlights growth of social inequality, WSWS, March 5th, 2014]
[2] – [World’s richest added $852 billion to their fortunes in first half of 2023, WSWS, July 3rd, 2023]
[3] – [warriorofnorth:2026]
[4] – [@ Trotes936897:status/1823725951005680007]
[5] – [ “أوكرانيا: سيطرنا على ألف كيلومتر مربع من كورسك الروسية,” Al-Arabiya, August 12th, 2024]