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Ukraine’s Counter-Invasion of Russia’s Kursk Region May Decide the War
[SEO Topics: Kursk, War in Ukraine, Armed Forces of Ukraine]
Preview: From a tactical standpoint, Ukraine achieved a major military victory. But the more far-reaching success has been strategic and psychological, impacting decision-makers in both Washington and Moscow.
Andrei Piontovsky
The Kursk Operation carried out by the Ukrainian Armed Forces may play the deciding role in the outcome of the Russo-Ukrainian war.
The Ukrainians just need to keep applying the pressure and do it in the proper manner. From a tactical standpoint, they have achieved a major military victory – that cannot be disputed. But the more far-reaching success has been a strategic and psychological one, and it has impacted decision-makers in both Washington and Moscow.
“Bold, brilliant, beautiful,” is how US Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) described Ukraine’s cross-border operation during a bi-partisan Senate delegation visit to Kyiv on Monday. US Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) called it “historic” and a “seismic breakthrough.”
But the senators went further than mere congratulatory remarks. Imagine my delight when I discovered that the two gentlemen had, in their final communique, articulated “My Theory for Delivering Victory to Ukraine,” which I have presented to readers in a series of articles in the Kyiv Post.
ISW Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, December, 20, 2024
Senators Blumenthal and Graham issued a joint, bipartisan communique after their visit:
“After listening to President Zelensky, we urge the Biden Administration to lift restrictions on weapons provided by the United States so they can strike the Russian invaders more effectively.”
“Additionally, President Zelensky told us both that he would be looking to supplement his Air Force by establishing a program to recruit retired NATO F-16 fighter pilots. We support this effort. Ukraine is already fielding units of freedom fighters on the ground, and this volunteer force should be replicated in the air.”
The overly cautious, fainthearted West has clearly grown bolder, and that’s without Macron weighing in yet. He is only now emerging from the informal truce agreed to for the Olympic games in Paris.
The biggest threat now for Putin and his associates inside Russia comes not from anti-war liberals (their leaders have either been killed, exiled, or thrown in jail) but from the Z-patriot scum demanding that this bloody ballet continue. This crowd has become more and more suspicious of late – whispers of “The Tsar is not Real!” grow louder. The debacle in Kursk may see these suspicions turn to certainties.
Our sorry excuse for a fuhrer knows perfectly well that the World War he unleashed on the West on 24 February 2022 – ”Take your stuff and get out of here, out of the pages of world history” – has been lost. He lost it at the Battle of Hostomel and will never assume the mantle of Master of the Universe.
Putin’s main problem at present is an existential one – how to remain in power (and, thus, alive) in a country that has lost a war. As a possible solution to this problem, he began arresting generals by the dozen and blaming them for the defeat.
What of poor Gerasimov, sitting in some basement swearing to the dictator he would drive out the Ukrainian occupiers by the end of his workday? I fear we have seen the last of him.
The Kursk debacle has forced me to make a few corrections to my plan for victory for Ukraine. My initial version, supported by the US Congressional Delegation on Aug. 12 in Kyiv, stipulated that Ukraine would receive 150-200 state-of-the-art Western aircraft and that the enemy’s alignment of forces in Crimea be destroyed remotely. On a practical level, two to three months would be needed to implement this plan. It seems recent events have significantly lowered the regime’s life expectancy.
We already have ten F-16 fighter aircraft which could be equipped with Storm Shadow and SCALP missiles. We have ATACMS with a range of 300 km (186 miles). I believe these assets would be sufficient to blow the Crimea bridge to smithereens, and it would take a mere two to three weeks to plan. We might even be able to do it before the end of August, the traditional month for the collapse of Russian regimes.
In the public consciousness, destroying a crucial symbol of Rashist expansionism, coupled with the disgrace in Kursk, will do much to detonate that flammable mixture of a second-rate fuhrer, a second-rate military, and second-rate patriots. The Z-patriot scum and ex-cons will then bolt out of the trenches of Kursk and Donbas, armed to the teeth, and head straight to the address printed on the murdered Prigozhin’s final pamphlets – to the Rublyovka estates of the well-fed oligarchs and generals who unleashed this senseless war.
The meltdown of Russian society has already begun and is no longer possible to stop. At the cost of thousands upon thousands of lives, Ukraine has managed to prevent the Rashist magma from spreading to prosperous Europe. The individuals and institutions laying claim to the role of “Leader of the Free World” can and must help Ukraine immediately in purging its sovereign territory of the toxic by-products of the collapse of Russian statehood.
The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.
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