A Gift Surprise From Ukraine to Russia

"[Russia had launched nearly 2,000 cross-border strikes from its western Kursk region at Ukraine's Sumy region over the summer, deserving a] fair [Ukrainian response]."
"Artillery, mortars, drones. We also record missile strikes, and each such strike deserves a fair response [amid a Ukrainian cross-border incursion into the Kursk region]."

"[It's time to] push the war out into the aggressor's territory."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy 

Moscow promises 'tough response' to Ukraine's offensive inside Russia  BBC

A "federal-level" emergency has been declared by Moscow in the Kursk region hard on a large-scale incursion from Ukraine, leading the Kremlin to sent in reinforcements four days after hundreds of Ukrainian troops flooded across the border in Kyiv's largest counter-attack on Russian soil since Moscow's 'special military operation' went into action in February of 2022.

Russia decries the Ukraine government's decision to spread conflict chaos within the peaceful Kursk region, forcing thousands of Russians to flee elsewhere for safety. Actions of survival mode their Ukrainian counterparts have been forced to resort to for several years. The Russian government appears shocked that their Ukrainian counterparts feel it is just and even-handed to impose on Russian civilians what President Putin has done to Ukrainian civilians.

That very same Russian government that declares it has never targeted civilians or civil infrastructure, confining its targets strictly to military detachments and depots and infrastructure whose purpose is support of the Ukrainian military. They know the civilized rules of warfare and they respect them. Which explains why it is that a Russian plane launched a missile targeting a Ukrainian shopping mail in mid-day killing a dozen civilians and wounding another 44. Clearly, they were all military personnel.

Thick black smoke rose above the eastern Donetsk town of Kostiantynivka where the mall, located in the town's residential area, was hit. "This is another targeted attack on a crowded place, another act of terror by the Russians", Vadym Filashkin, Donetsk regional head noted in a Telegram post of the second major strike to hit the town in less than a year. A Russian missile struck an outdoor market in the town last September, killing 17 citizens. 

 

The RIA-Novosti news agency, citing the defence ministry, reported that Russia is deploying multiple rocket launchers, towed artillery guns, tanks transported on trailers and heavy tracked vehicles to the Kursk region in a defensive countering Ukraine's raid. Kursk acting governor stated on Telegram: "The operational situation in the Kursk region remains difficult."

 

The surprise Ukrainian operation's strategic aims are as yet unclear, beyond offering to Russia and Russians a taste  of what their 'special military operation' has wrought in Ukraine and how it has affected Ukrainians for the past two years. Meanwhile the Ukrainian forces are certainly making a statement respecting the vulnerability of Russian border towns with this incursion taking place some 500 km southwest of Moscow. Ukrainian drones have shrunk even that gap, in the near past.

 

Ukrainian service members ride an Armoured Personnel Carrier, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, near the Russian border in Sumy region, Ukraine August 11, 2024. REUTERS/Viacheslav Ratynskyi

According to Myhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, border region attacks will give reasonable cause to Russia to "start to realize that the war is slowly creeping inside of Russian territory". Suggesting the operation would further Kyiv's hand should negotiations with Moscow proceed.

 

"Such a coordinated ground force movement responds to a clear military objective, yet unknown, that requires extreme operational security", stated Mathieu Boulegue, Chatham House think tank defence analyst. Ukraine, he said, appears to harbour a clear goal regardless of whether they are prepared to divulge their longer-term strategy. 

Even as the Ukrainian army struggles to hold an intense Russian advance on the front line in eastern Ukraine, the Donetsk region in particular, the new assault inside Russia arrived unexpectedly as a bold, assertive move. One that stands to quite possibly foil Russian President Vladimir Putin's intention to capture those parts of Donetsk that Kremlin forces do not yet occupy. 

Considerable attention has been given the Kursk fighting in Russian media on news websites and state news broadcasts. The first ten minutes of State TV channel Rossiya-1 was devoted entirely to various views of the situation on its 11 a.m. Friday newscast. In the absence of reporting from the front, video from the Russian Defence Ministry purportedly showing the destruction of Ukrainian military vehicles and a howitzer led the newscast.

Otherwise much coverage was highlighted related to the humanitarian situation, where children were being taken to shelter aboard buses. And a boastful assurance by the Russian Defence Ministry, to a skeptical home audience that the military "continues to repel the attempted invasion". Military repelling invasion? Children brought by buses to shelters? Sounds quite familiar, does it not?

Sumy region, Ukraine, August 11, 2024. REUTERS/Viacheslav Ratynskyi