The Russian Federation has declared a state of “federal emergency” throughout the Kursk region, in the south of the country and bordering Ukraine, on the fourth day of the offensive launched by the Kiev Armed Forces. In addition, the Ministry of Defense has reported that additional forces are already being transferred. What began as a mere rumor spread by pro-Russian media and bloggers, and about which the Ukrainian authorities remained silent, has become Ukraine’s largest incursion into Russian territory since the beginning of the invasion that began in February 2022 and “a large-scale provocation” for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The declaration of a federal emergency was announced on Friday in a statement by the Russian government’s crisis response commission, reported by the official TASS news agency. This declaration implies that the government can allocate forces and resources from all over Russia to the area, as well as receive funds from the federal budget. In other words, it is the tool for Russia to deploy everything it needs to respond to the offensive in the region.
The Ministry of Defense has reported that fighting continues in Kursk “to destroy the formations of the Ukrainian army” and has detailed the sending of columns with Grad multiple launch rocket systems, artillery and tanks. It has also stated that they have hit Ukrainian troops in the vicinity of the villages of Darino, Gogolevka, Melovaya, Nikolski and on the outskirts of Sudzha. The mayor of the town of Kurchatov, where the Kursk nuclear power plant is located, has warned that hostilities are taking place “several dozen kilometers” from the plant. In parallel, Russia has requested a meeting of the UN Security Council on August 13 to “discuss” what it considers “crimes committed by the authorities in kyiv,” TASS reports.
Following the silence of the Ukrainian authorities at the beginning of the offensive on Russian soil, President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday evening suggested that his troops were responsible: “Russia brought war to our land, and it must feel sorry for what it has done. We strive to achieve our goals as soon as possible in peacetime, on fair peace conditions. And so it will be.” This Friday, the Ukrainian General Staff announced through a message on its Telegram channel that its forces had attacked with drones the military airfield in the Russian province of Lipetsk, 300 kilometers from the border between the two countries. kyiv maintains that in these facilities the Russian forces house SU-34, SU-35 and MiG-31 fighter-bombers, used to bomb Ukraine. “A strong fire broke out and multiple explosions were observed,” said the General Staff.
Earlier in the day, the governor of the Russian province of Lipetsk, Igor Artamonov, had said that a “massive attack” by drones had caused at least nine injuries and damaged a power plant. Russian forces have reported shooting down 75 drones overnight, of which 26 were intercepted in the province of Belgorod and another 19 in Lipetsk, where the population of four villages was also evacuated.
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Kursk was not the only target of Ukraine this morning. There were also attacks against Russia in Crimea, where the head of the occupation government of Sevastopol, Mikhal Razvozhayev, said on Telegram that the Russian army had destroyed air and sea drones near the city.
Russian attack in Donetsk leaves 14 dead
The Kremlin has also been hitting civilian targets in Donetsk province hard. On Friday, it bombed a supermarket in the town of Kostiantinivka, killing at least 14 people and wounding 43 others. Russian troops have also stepped up their attacks in Sumi, dropping more than 100 bombs on the region in the past two days and ordering the evacuation of 6,000 people.
In the absence of specifics from the Ukrainian military, data from war analysts indicate that Kiev troops continued their rapid advance into the Kursk region on Thursday. “They are present in areas located 35 kilometers from the international border with the Ukrainian region of Sumi. However, they do not control the entire territory within the maximalist extent of Russian claims about their advances in the Kursk region,” estimates the military. think tank Institute for the Study of War (ISW) in its daily report.
Beyond these latest incursions, many questions remain about the offensive, including the number of units sent and lost in combat. Ukraine has not provided any data; Russia, meanwhile, claimed that kyiv initially deployed 1,000 troops and two years later claimed that it has already lost 945 troops and 102 armored vehicles since the start of hostilities in the province. Pro-Russian military bloggers acknowledge that Ukrainian forces are successfully using “new and innovative” tactics and technological capabilities, such as home-made drones, in whose development Ukraine has taken the lead following the large-scale Russian invasion.
The Ukrainian operation has been described by experts consulted by this newspaper as “asymmetrical”, that is, carried out with a small number of forces, but effective. The renowned military analyst Mijailo Samus maintains that Kiev’s objective may be to pressure Russian commanders so that they have to decide where to send their military resources, since a good part of them are in the Donbas region, where the attacks have accelerated in recent weeks. Another objective cited by specialists is to have a new trump card in hand for future negotiations. All this, in a context of urgency, because the United States elections are on November 4 and the former president and new candidate for the Republicans, Donald Trump, has warned that he does not want to continue financing this war. If he wins, he says he intends to end it.
For ISW analysts, the Kremlin is almost certain to try to recapture Kursk, as Ukraine’s advances on its territory “would deal a strategic blow to Putin’s decades-long effort to cement a legacy of Russian stability, security and geopolitical resurgence.”
The surprise factor
One of the advantages Ukraine has in this offensive has been the element of surprise. The operation was predictably planned months in advance and required significant intelligence work regarding the location and the Russian forces in the Kursk region. The secrecy was such that even the United States admitted that it was not aware of the offensive.
In Moscow’s case, the developments show that they were not expecting anything like this. Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov and other senior officials apparently dismissed warnings from their intelligence until two weeks before the assault began, and no one informed President Vladimir Putin, according to a person close to the Kremlin cited by Bloomberg.
In fact, some bloggers and war analysis groups close to Russia such as Rybar have criticized the Kremlin for its inactivity and criticized that it had plenty of time to prepare a response because “for two months all the information was sent to the useless headquarters,” according to the latter. think tank.
Meanwhile, on the international stage, the EU on Thursday framed the attack on Kursk as part of the “defensive” war that kyiv has been waging against Russia’s invasion since February 2022, reiterating its support for Ukraine at this time. The United States, for its part, said it would ask Ukraine for information about this operation, but that broadly speaking it was “consistent” with its policy.
Another question is whether kyiv has a special interest in the Kursk region because of its nuclear power plant and because Sudzha — where fighting has been raging since the first day of hostilities — is home to the last operational distribution station for Russian natural gas going to Europe via Ukraine. The Urengoy-Pomary-Uzhhorod pipeline carried about 14.65 billion cubic meters of gas in 2023, roughly half of Russia’s exports to Europe, according to Reuters. Ukraine’s gas transmission operator has reported that the fuel is moving normally, but there has been concern in the European market, which recorded a 4.5% price increase on Wednesday, the highest level since December, according to Bloomberg.
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