Ukraine vs Russia III

Third world countries are always willing to squeeze their farmers and rural residents to keep urbanites quiet.

 

And first world countries.

 

America is mostly the opposite of this. There's a reason every rich person has a ranch and/or farm. It's a tremendous tax break.

 

The small farmer has been squeezed out.

 

Europe as well.. Farming is one of the most subsidized industries that there is…

 

So, it appears that the United States is providing Ukraine F-16's - sort of. We are giving them worn out fighters with everything inside stripped out to serve as decoys. If you are wondering why we know about this seemingly secret information, it appears that certain Americans involved in moving them decided to take selfies and publish them.

But I wouldn't be that hard on them. Ukraine decided to make some publicity photos of the decoys and even used two of them in the background of a speech by Zelenskyy:



and why not? F-16's are F-16's, right? But even before the secret was out, people with an eye for details (that is, plastic modellers) knew that these fighters were a variant that did not serve with the nations giving fighters to Ukraine (only Italy, Portugal, and the United States) and that something hinky was going on. So it's something that Russia would have figured out anyway - if not their weapons experts, then by the very large plastic modelling population in the country.

 

So a deception plan.The US placed an army of wooden dummies in England to confuse the Wehrmacht.Russians aren't the only ones who can do this.

 

The British had wooden tanks.



And there was Beau Geste with the dead men on the ramparts.

 

According to legend, El Cid and I think Takeda Shingen too both used their own dead bodies as props to misinform their enemies.

Fan Yuqi used his own head as a prop as part of a plot to assassinate the Qin emperor, committing suicide in a bid to kill him.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jing_Ke

History has some amazing stories.

 

The state of his survival is rough to say the least.

oof pic.twitter.com/7BCMwS3sud

— WarTranslated (Dmitri) (@wartranslated) August 8, 2024

 

I wonder how long Ukraine has been preparing for the Kursk invasion? It did seem sort of weird that Russia were slowly gaining ground inch by inch and Ukraine has not done anything imaginative the whole summer.

In any case, it did seem like an ideal time to launch this. Russia sending air defense systems to Iran gives Ukraine a fighting chance to support this invasion properly. I'm not sure that Ukraine expected Russia to be so weak on the border but kudos to them on probing and being prepared to expand this incursion.

There are a lot of positive points for Ukraine. First, the world at large no longer worries about Russian reprisals. Second, holding Russian lands will strengthen Ukraine's position in peace negotiations. Third, they signal to their allies that they are still a viable investment. Fourth, Russian morale will be hit substantially.

 

Cheap wooden and metal dummy weapons of all kinds are extremely common in Ukraine (including wooden F-16's) and if you follow any of the Ukraine twitter or Telegram accounts you will see pictures of them all the time. It doesn't matter if Russia knows about them because you can't tell what is what from a drone, and maybe even helps if Russia knows they are wasting ammunition.

The point of the non-flying F-16's was to fool any observers on the ground and if it is known it becomes much less effective.

 

They appear to have been hitting communication equipment and power stations in the area for a couple weeks.

 

So, the big question is what is to keep Ukraine from driving deep in to Russia just like Wagner did last year? I'm not saying it will happen but it should be a subject of discussion in Russia. That's what the best incursions do, they open various lines of possibilities to keep the opposition guessing.

 

My gut feeling on this attack is that Ukraine will be trying to grab and control a chunk of Russia before reinforcements are sent. After grabbing the important Sudzha station they are now pushing Northwest to Korenevo. If they continue in that direction they will have a relatively defendable sliver of Russia with a short frontline compared to what they had before.

UPDATE: Local sources in Kursk Oblast are implying that Ukrainian forces have occupied both Korenevo and Malaya. It took the Russian military 2+ years to build two lines of fortifications to protect the region. It took Ukrainian forces less than a day to breach them. https://t.co/U988iNJj2w pic.twitter.com/97GZZ7zHCb

— Donald R. Koelper (@Donald_from_HI) August 8, 2024

 

Korenevo is really interesting. Ukraine has a railway that leads straight in to it and the Seym river is just east. If Ukraine take it they have a nice little launching point in Russian territory.

 

Manpower. Ukraine has a serious manpower problem right now and it seems like they cannibalized a good portion of their front in order to get the troops to make this incursion.

What is stopping them from marching on Moscow is that they don't have the manpower to maintain control of their supply lines if they were to make a significant incursion into Russia.

 

That doesn't stop me from dreaming about Prigo's Run 2: Electric Boogaloo.

Dumb Prigo should have finished what he started.

 

Ukranian Railways breaking OpSec a little.

Ukrainian railways enters the de-occupied territories after the Ukrainian army.

We could, of course, take over the Sudja, Koreneve and Psel railway stations in Kurshchyna, but our priority is to return and rebuild Ukrainian railway stations and depots. pic.twitter.com/1oSVn0Itcv

— Ukrainian railways || Укрзалізниця (@Ukrzaliznytsia) August 8, 2024

 

Railway map for reference. There's a lot more bridges to bomb from Korenevo.

 

The thing about intelligent warfare is that you have to do some unintelligent things in order to bait the enemy. What's really interesting is that everybody is surprised that Ukraine got so many forces there.

 

At a minimum, Russia will have to rethink their border forces. Ukraine easily blasted through defenses and now the whole underbelly of Russia is open for raids. Again, what is there to deter a small force from raiding deep in to Russia?

 

Potential defensive lines near Kursk. That railway would keep a Korenevo-Sudzha front well supplied.

 

It looks like the real target will be the rail station at Vishnevka near the natural defensive boundary of the Reka River.

Fighting has resumed near Korenevo, specifically a clash in the village of Snagost in the Kursk region. pic.twitter.com/RmGoUH145z

— NOELREPORTS 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 (@NOELreports) August 8, 2024