Russian special military operation in Ukraine #60

Kursk direction: strikes on enemy reinforcements
situation as of 20:00, August 18, 2024

Fighting continues in the Kursk region , and the enemy is building up its forces in the occupied territories of the region.

In the Korenevsky district , fighting continues in the vicinity of Korenevo itself and Olgovka . In the latter, a Ukrainian tank was hit by a strike from several UAVs, while the settlement itself most likely still remains under enemy control.

In the Sudzhansky district , clashes also continue. In Novoivanovka, a column of enemy forces was hit by a Tornado MLRS strike. Ukrainian formations do not abandon plans to consolidate and advance in the region.

In addition, footage has appeared on the Internet of a car with members of the Ukrainian Armed Forces reaching the intersection of Oktyabrskaya and Pionerskaya streets in the eastern part of Sudzha. No shooting is heard, and only burnt-out civilian cars are visible on the streets.

In the Belovsky district , no new attempts at attacks have been recorded. However, the area cannot be discounted, especially in conjunction with the activity of Ukrainian formations in the border zone near the Belgorod region .

High resolution map

English version

#дайджест #карта #Курск #Россия #Украина
@rybar

https://t.me/rybar/62883

WG on the situation in Kursk region on 18.08

— In order to destabilize the situation, the enemy is trying to cut off our Tyotkino group from supplies. Today, the Ukrainian Armed Forces attacked the bridge over the Seim River near Zvannoye

— The situation in Korenevsky District remains tense, and the head of the district, Marina Degtyareva, called on people to refrain from trying to return home until the situation stabilizes

— More than 1.7 thousand people were evacuated from the border areas of the Kursk region within 24 hours

— Emergencies Ministry bomb disposal experts in Kursk Oblast destroyed five American M77 submunitions in one day

— Over the past 24 hours, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have lost more than 300 soldiers and 27 armored vehicles, including six tanks, in the Kursk direction – Russian Defense Ministry

@wargonzo

Arrow wrote:

This is interesting because for a year and a half now the narrative has been that the Ukrainian forces are about to fall apart.

And that talk is still correct.  About 160 years ago, last month, in another war, Robert E Lee ordered Jubal Early to attack Washington DC to ease off pressure of his own forces and to get breathing space to keep the coming storm of U.S. Grant off his back.  Well Early did get into the District of Columbia,  that's right in 1864 the Confederate Army got to within 4 miles of the White House, they got Union Supplies, they disrupted federal supply lines in Maryland.  Tactically speaking, it was stunning Confederate success.  Strategically, as in how it impacted the course of the war? Early achieved about as much in 1864 as the Ukrehrmacht has achieved this year, that is to say they didn't do bo diddly.  Sherman's army marched relentlessly through the deep south emancipating slaves, burning farms, food stuffs, cotton, and plantations, bringing the war to Confederate civilians who were already losing confidence in the war and by the end of 1864, Sherman had reached the Atlantic after blazing a 100 mile wide swath of destruction through the south and taking Atlanta.  Closer to Early's raid? Grant continued to bludgeon Confederate forces in Virginia.  Grant would be called a butcher by Confederate revisionists, but ruthless was more like it because he didn't let Lee lick his wounds, he just kept pounding and pounding and pounding the rebs, never allowing Lee to completely regroup.  Kinda like the Russians in Donetsk.  Why didn't Grant completely destroy the large contingent of forces defending Richmond in 1864 after some of them were used to attack Maryland and Washington DC? It would have been a waste of resources.

Duplicate deleted

Why did you repeat same article?

mnztr wrote:

The 10K are all scatttered so it will take some time to mop them up. They will get droned when they go out to take a shit. The 120K in Belarus probably have encampments and are in larger clusters, but that is probably 800-1000km away unless you attack from Belarus. So they would have to use kaliber missiles or SU 34 with a long flight over Urkaine (which it can do) we are talking 4h mission to deliver FABs.

Length of the Belarus-Ukraine border is over 1000 kilometers. In a straight line, from east to west it is 600.
They will certainly not send Su-34 in long range missions over Ukraine, since they stopped doing that during 2022. In any case they are much more needed in Kursk and over Ukraininan front.
Kursk is much easier to solve, as it is easy to supply, plus there's 200k refugees and political cost to take into calculations. Also, i believe that Lukashenko will be much more careful going forward and try to keep Belarus out of any hostilities for as long as possible.

The US and NATO have been planning this Kursk invasion for over a year. We seen the exact same thing happen previous to the "counter offensive" in 2022. The western media dooms while Nato plan the next gambit.

And this is going to keep happening. Russia will eventually snuff out Kursk. And keep making slow progress in the east. And while another year passes, the US will arm and plan another one of these attacks. What gives ? Now instead of just towns in ukraine getting destroyed , there's towns in Russia getting destroyed.

Russia can afford to fight like this. But so can the US and Nato. If Russia doesn't change its strategy , the next 5 years is going to look like the last 2. The entire govt of Ukraine and the administrative state has to be destroyed. Make it harder for them. The fucking govt of Ukraine should be in exile in Poland. Not sitting comfortably in Kiev.

Like Garry I believe that the US embassy in Kiev should be targeted. Unlike him I think it should just be a warning shot, a direct hit being a declaration of war.

My suggestion would be an earth penetrating munition in the middle of the road outside the embassy, with not a lot of above ground damage but strong like a mini earthquake so that everyone in it can feel the vibes. Ideally at the spot that damages the utilities, like water/sewage/electricity/comms.

Objective being to scare the shit out of all the people there who didn't believe they had signed up to be at risk in a war zone and to make life harder within it.

At the same time make a mess of the westbound railway lines out of Kiev to make escape more difficult.

JohninMK wrote:Like Garry I believe that the US embassy in Kiev should be targeted. Unlike him I think it should just be a warning shot, a direct hit being a declaration of war.

My suggestion would be an earth penetrating munition in the middle of the road outside the embassy, with not a lot of above ground damage but strong like a mini earthquake so that everyone in it can feel the vibes. Ideally at the spot that damages the utilities, like water/sewage/electricity/comms.

Objective being to scare the shit out of all the people there who didn't believe they had signed up to be at risk in a war zone and to make life harder within it.

At the same time make a mess of the westbound railway lines out of Kiev to make escape more difficult.

The west might bitch if just the embassies are hit, however, if Russia were to launch a massive city wide attack which would knock out Kiev's television stations, take down its internet capabilities, cellular communications, electricity, and his government buildings, rail yards and rail station, airport (sorry but no western politician should feel safe walking around Kiev), and it just happened that the American, British, German, and French embassies were hit and significantly damaged and/or destroyed by errant missiles, Ukrainian air defenses could be blamed and plausible deniability can be loudly proclaimed but everyone would know that you **** with the bear and you get mauled.

I've been thinking that this whole Kursk offensive was a trap. 

Russia reacted to fast to the Belgorod incursions and could kill only 100 or 200 Banderites.
This time they gave the enemy some room to maneuver himself into the trap.
3500 KIA so far.

flamming_python wrote:If there is regime change in any European nation then I'm all for ties.

What regime change? Russia cannot regime change.

Chance of having a pro-Russian (or even neutral to Russia) government in countries like Germany, Britain, France is close to zero. Chance of having a pro-Russian (or even neutral to Russia) government in Finland, Poland and Baltic states is exactly zero.

If Russia - after all of this is over (and if Russia exists by then) - ever fall for these "from Vladivostok to Lisbon" idiocies ever again then they are the biggest morons on this planet.

sepheronx wrote:

Backman wrote:

It isn't that. It is the bureaucratic technocratic legalistic state that everything gets bogged down in. And the one time they allowed someone to work outside of it , Prigozin happened.

All militaries are like this to an extent.

Don't know.

When you got both Pepe Escobar and the Duran saying that Putin was visibly angry, and I notice he was visibly angry, means that things really didn't go to plan and someone fucked up severely.

Then when I'm reading various Russians response and how they keep saying that the upper command are useless twats with no experience or as Caveat said, full of medals but never faced combat, then gives me indication it was gross incompetence.

Now they are busy trying to clear this area.  Smart thing was that they declared all three regions as part of the CTO.

Now let's see what Ukraine does with its soldiers bordering Belarus.  Even if they don't have 120K troops near Belarus, if they even have troops there to begin with, says a lot more than Russia being caught with its pants down in Kursk.

Putin was pissed because he was fooled into bad faith negotiations again. The Chines were involved in these negs and they were pissed too. Thats what the  Duran was saying Putin was pissed about.

For all we know , generals and guards were probably telling Putin and the security council about these troop movements. It The war has been going for years now. The bad generals have been removed.

But everyone in Russian doom circles just blames the guys on the ground every time this happens. And never the security council. Everything goes through them. They decided the scale of the war. Not the generals

Sorry dude but I warned everyone... 2 day break from this forum for both inappropriate use of the quote button and also ignoring instructions of a mod. GarryB

sepheronx wrote:According to Lukashenko, Ukraine has 120K men stationed near Belarus border. So apparently Ukraine has plenty of men to send to other regions like it did in Kursk.

I thought Ukraine was already out of soldiers.

Backman wrote:

sepheronx wrote:

Arsenic wrote:Why doesn't Russia destroy these 120,000 men?

Incompetence.

For whatever reason, Russian authorities are holding back for nothing other than to extend the amount of deaths and blunders of their own.

The Russian military is capable. But for whatever reason, the high command is just sitting still.  Putin was apparently visibly angry, meaning that even he is aware of the **** ups.

It isn't that. It is the bureaucratic technocratic legalistic state that everything gets bogged down in. And the one time they allowed someone to work outside of it , Prigozin happened.

All militaries are like this to an extent.

If I remember correctly Russia did extradite DPR/LPR activists to Ukraine on their request as recently as in 2021.

You cannot get any more legalistic (and naively stupid) than this.


Sorry dude but I warned everyone... 2 day break from this forum for both inappropriate use of the quote button and also ignoring instructions of a mod. GarryB

Karl Haushofer wrote:

If I remember correctly Russia did extradite DPR/LPR activists to Ukraine on their request as recently as in 2021.

You cannot get any more legalistic (and naively stupid) than this.

Mmmm, quoting 3 nested posts, that isn't a wise posting.

kvs wrote:The "failure of Russian intelligence" theory is not credible.   We do not need the whole apparatus to function on some superior plane of existence.   We just need base
level workers engaged in routine monitoring of available observation platforms.   For Kursk to be a failure, it would require that this work was not carried out for long
periods of time.   I suppose this fits the racist NATzO stereotypes about drunk Russians (note how Ukrs stopped being drunks once NATzO got control of them) but it
is not a real theory and instead is a masturbatory fantasy projection.  

Pepe Escobar can sample "experts" but there is no balance in the mix.   Only some of them are right and the rest are wrong.

Agreed, this isn't some 'intelligence failure' over a terrorist attack that was planned in secret and executed by a small group of people
What we're talking about is the border with an enemy country that Russia is at war with. It's not only going to be monitored, but there are going to be a lot of different Russian intel agencies receiving intelligence and with their own reconnaissance means and information about an attack on Russia will make its way directly to the president, and to other higher-ups on the security council and beyond, not just stop at Gerasimov.

None of the scenarios offered make sense, about no-one noticing anything, observations being dismissed out of complacency, the Russians not knowing how Zelensky and Syrsky calculate and what sort of stunts they go for by now, or indeed being lulled into false security by the latest round of negotiations that go nowhere that Forbes alleges were taking place in Doha.
This isn't the first year of the war. This isn't the first incursion onto Russian soil. These aren't the first negotiations that go nowhere - if they even happened at all.

I think Pablo Escobar here is just being used as an unknowing mouthpiece for Russian disinfo efforts; including all the usual conspiracy theories and intrigues being floated. Which we can expect, as the battles are ongoing. We will find out eventually what was up.

Excellent tale of the saga of the Glushkovo bridges, one bridge down (replaced by a pontoon) and one damaged, in exchange for 3 HIMARS launchers and a Mig-29. Sounds a pretty good deal to me.



https://x.com/ArmchairW/status/1825252048708710888

If true this is amazing. The UA seems to be doubling or trebling down on the Kursk front. Are they trying to shift all PR attention to a 'success here' in the hope that the gradual crumbling in Donetsk will go unnoticed?

"Important for understanding the situation in the border area. Our reconnaissance assets have recorded an increase in enemy transport activity in its rear areas on the Kharkov-Sumy communications routes. 


Most likely, this is connected with the formation of new strike groups that could be sent to attack the Grayvoronsky or Krasnoyarsk districts, or to strengthen the Ukrainian Armed Forces group in the Kursk region. 


The enemy is not going to back down. Apparently, he continues to gather strength. Our people are waiting for the enemy’s next steps as best they can see." brussinf TG

7:30 PM · Aug 18, 2024
·

9,360
Views

sepheronx wrote:The Russian military is capable. But for whatever reason, the high command is just sitting still.  Putin was apparently visibly angry, meaning that even he is aware of the **** ups.

Putin has little to be angry about, in truth. At least from where I'm standing.

The Kursk invasion opens up a great opportunity to destroy the Ukraine's reserves and then counter-attack towards Kiev and strangle the regime with no more useless talk about negotiations - Russian policy towards the Ukraine as one of self-defense against NATO and its puppets has been vindicated in full before the eyes of its BRICS partners and the wider world. America is not interested in peace, nor their people controlling the Ukraine either.

If Putin was visibly angry at a televised meeting, and I haven't seen it so can't say one or the other - then he was either putting it on for an audience, of he was genuinely angry, whether over an intel and defense failure at every possible level, or about these 'peace negotiations' being interrupted and him being fooled yet again. I dismiss the 2nd possibility, but I can't entirely discount the later possibility, of course. Nor of him returning to the topic of negotiations some months later.

ucmvulcan wrote:I would not say incompetence, more just frugality.  Why waste munitions destroying troops that your enemy has to keep in reserve to defend against a possible attack from that direction?  Putin and his generals were expecting that they were facing competent commanders who would not drain the forces defending their capital for silly side shows into cow pastures.  That's not a for whatever reason, its just that Putin thought the Ukes would hold their forces near Kiev to prevent encroachments from Belarus.  So please, why waste munitions against a force in being when you have forces at the front that require more attention.  However, I am sure these formations will soon get attacked.

There is no such thing as 'you thought'.

There is prepare and have a contingency plan for every occasion. And have defenses in place, and reserves ready to plug local defenses if they are overwhelmed. And then you have your recon satellites and your signals intelligence and your drones and so on to tell you what to think; not make assumptions in place of them.

Of course you will have to make calculated risks too in war. Redeploy some men from less critical sections of the front to more critical ones, whatever. None of that however means that you stop gathering and receiving intelligence, or that you leave your borders unguarded; unless you are feinting yourself of course.

This is a far more complicated game then simply thinking and expecting not expecting and then being shocked with 10,000 enemy troops cross your border with 0 warning and becoming red-faced about it.
The actual embarrassments and failures that have happened in this war, Russia kept a poker face about, and so did NATO.

flamming_python wrote:

The Kursk invasion opens up a great opportunity to destroy the Ukraine's reserves and then counter-attack towards Kiev and strangle the regime with no more useless talk about negotiations - Russian policy towards the Ukraine as one of self-defense against NATO and its puppets has been vindicated in full. America is not interested in peace, nor their people controlling the Ukraine either.

Through Sumy and Chernigov? Another re-run of spring of 2022 affair is not something that Russians should strive for. If they even have enough force for it, to begin with.
Eventual breach of Pokrovsk section and beyond makes more sense,imo.

Pissing off Hungary will surely come back to bite them.


Ukraine has lost half of the energy capacity needed for winter—around 9 GW of electricity generation.

This was reported by European Commissioner for Energy Kadri Simson in an article for the Financial Times. It is expected that after strikes by Russian forces on energy facilities, the country will face the most challenging winter since the start of the special military operation. Previously, Ukraine complained that the EU is refusing to increase electricity imports.

http://T.me/ukraine_watch

@Python

Yeah. They probably thought that those troops were there to defend the Ukr border from Russia. And maybe Putin had one of his backroom agreements about this front. We won't attack here if you don't attack. And for goodwill and to show he meant it , they thinned out the troops around this area.

And using Nato scum logic , this was all in bad faith and they set it all up this way , precisely to knife Putin for the 10th time.

Putin believes that Russia can win the attrition war to the point that they will leverage the US and Kiev into some kind of good faith agreement. This always happens when Russia is getting the upper hand attrition wise. But at the same time he says the US is non agreement capable. Well what is it ?

Cue the infrastructure bombing campaign. And then more negotiations after Putin has cooled off a bit.

I don't mean this in any disrespectful way, but Putin should retire.