The Kursk Offensive: One Week In

Update: What More Do We Know (and Not Know)

Hello All,

Ok we are now just over a week since the Ukrainians launched their offensive into Kursk Oblast. One thing that is now being accepted—even by the failures in the analytic community who were casting doubts of Ukraine all summer, saying that they were on the ropes, etc—is that this is not some small raid, but it is a real offensive (if still limited as Mykola and I discussed last week). We still don’t know Ukraine’s ultimate aim and how far they would like to push into Russia, or for how long they plan to stay. However we do have some evidence of how the Ukrainians want the offensive to be understood, how the US government is reacting to it, and how the Russians are scrambling to try and repair the breach.

Ukrainian troops entered Kursk Oblast “easily”

This is a Multi-axis offensive from which Ukraine is pushing out in a number of directions from the Russian town of Sudzha