OPINION: Reflections on Fallout from Ukraine’s Foray into Kursk

Ukraine’s incursion into the Kursk region is about to enter its third week, about the time you’d expect some diplomatic moves from the Kremlin and its supporters to give their assessment of events.

I can just imagine Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov arriving at the United Nations, standing behind some podium demanding, with a straight face, that a “declaration of condemnation be issued for Ukraine’s outrageous violation of international law with their cross-border invasion of sacred Russian territory….”  It would require someone with a face as stony as Lavrov’s to deliver hypocrisy on this scale, but he has had a lot of practice.

I can just imagine the perpetually persuasive Kremlin press secretary Dmitriy Peskov releasing an announcement to the press that says: “Everything is going according to plan…” and that “these unjustified hostilities, initiated by the aggressors, will be swiftly met with the appropriate response…”

I fully expect that President Vladimir Putin will declare that this latest unprovoked violation of Mother Russia was planned, orchestrated and driven by the unsympathetic extremists in Washington, and that Russia will soon be conducting another nuclear exercise.  This might even be accompanied by threatening phone calls to Jake Sullivan or a somewhat friendlier communication with his buddy Donald.

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Meanwhile, it should not come as a surprise if we see more high-ranking Russian Generals being summarily dismissed, for squandering the opportunities they were given, with all the men and equipment they should have needed, for success with the brilliant plans that were laid out for them by Putin.

However, there is another point of view:

It might almost be time for several spans of the Kerch bridge to fall, although it might make it easier for the Russian military to abandon Crimea, in the not-too-distant future, if it were left intact for that purpose.

Of all the noteworthy events or announcements that could or should be triggered soon by the current stunning audacity and momentum of the Ukrainian military, the most appropriate would be for President Biden to remove restriction on the use of US long-range weapons against VALID targets in Russia.  Once those munitions are sold or given to Ukraine, as has been pointed out, they then effectively become Ukrainian property.  Just as the missiles and artillery ammunition provided to Russia by North Korea are used freely against civilians across the breadth of Ukraine.  The absurdity of this dichotomy has endured long past its “sell-by date.”

The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.