The Ukrainian army is slowing down the pace of its advance into Russian territory, which began on August 6, but is consolidating its positions along natural obstacles. kyiv claimed on Thursday, August 22, to have captured an additional Russian village in the Kursk region and to have taken prisoners. This was stated by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during a visit to Sumy, a few kilometers from the border and the fighting. Previously, the Ukrainian army claimed to control 1,263 square kilometers and 93 localities, including the city of Sudja., small Russian town located in the border area.
Sumy Oblast Military Governor Volodymyr Artyukh told Zelensky that the number of cross-border artillery strikes and civilian casualties had decreased in that part of the territory. But the strategic goal is not to form a buffer zone to protect Sumy. The operation allowed Kiev to demonstrate that the Ukrainian armed forces, which have been stuck in a defensive posture for almost a year and are retreating to the Donetsk region, can regain the initiative and launch an offensive.
Politically, the operation places Russian President Vladimir Putin in an uncomfortable position with his population, while internationally the myth of the inviolability of Russian territory has been undermined. “The naive and illusory concept of a “red line” [brandi par] Russia, which dominated the assessment of the war by some partners, collapsed these days, somewhere near Sudja,” Mr Zelensky claimed on Monday.
“Maintain a defensible buffer zone”
If Ukraine hopes to hold this territory long enough to use it as a bargaining chip, its forces must, however, “to dig in and will have to hold out for a very long time, because kyiv does not have the means to force Russia to negotiate according to its timetable”, Judge Michael Kofman, one of the most astute military analysts on this conflict, speaking to the podcast “War on the Rocks”.
In order to force Russia to redeploy part of its forces attacking the Donetsk region – the Kremlin's main objective – to Kursk, Ukrainian troops “must hold a defensible buffer zone that will not require them to commit too many forces, because they are already stretched very thin along the front, and it will be very difficult to add an additional front at Kursk while holding the rest. And this will lead to real opportunity costs in 2025.”notes the American expert, who estimates the number of soldiers engaged in the offensive at 15,000 to 20,000.
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Source: Lemonde
