Category Russia

Of course, the main offensive this summer has been the Russian offensive towards Pokrovsk. The Second Battle of Kursk is kind of a sideshow. But this offensive toward Pokrovsk has been dragging on all summer, advancing very slowly across ground of no particular significance towards an objective of no particular significance. Lately, as they get nearer to Pokrovsk, the Russian offensive has slowed down from a crawl to a snail’s pace (these are precise technical terms). The Russians are currently from 7 to 12 kilometers from Pokrovsk.

The significance of this ground is that it is clear that Russian expects a ceasefire to be negotiated at some point (this fall, next fall, the fall after next fall?). When a ceasefire is negotiated, Russia expects to keep anything it has taken. Over the course of this entire summer, it has taken about 1,000 square kilometers (an area about the size of Fairfax County). I gather they are assuming that this will be part of their gains for “new Russia.” So, while the ground it not particular significant militarily or even economically, it is part of what appears to be a permanent expansion of the Russian border, fought over each square kilometer at a time (there are 2.59 square kilometers of a square mile). 

Just for the record, Pokrovsk is large town with a population of 60,127 in 2022. It is 56 kilometers (35 miles) northwest of Donetsk and is the administrative center of the Pokrovsk Raion. The Pokrovsk Raion has an area of 1,316 square kilometers (508 square miles) and a 2022 estimated population of 386,451. In the 2001 census 87% of the people were Ukrainian, 11% were Russian. In the town of Prokrovsk it was 75% Ukrainian, 22% Russian. The composer Sergie Prokofiev (1891-1953) was born here (at Sontsivka) and died in Moscow the same day as Stalin. He is buried at Novodevichy Cemetery (along with Khrushchev and half the senior commanders at the Battle of Kursk, see my big book for their grave pictures).

So, @Warmapper has been faithfully tracking this offensive for a while. It is listed in Wikipedia as starting 18 July 2024 and is still going on. This is date of the capture of the small village Prohres. There was an offensive going on before that, starting with the Battle of Avdiivka (10 October 2023 – 17 February 2024) and continuing up to the capture of Prohres. Let us crib some maps from Warmapper for a moment:

This map is dated 24 August 2024. The part in blue is the pre-February 2022 border of the DPR. One can see their push from the border near Avdiivka toward Pokrovsk. This is an advance of around 40 kilometers. Not exactly earthshaking and not all done this year.

Here is the advance as of 30 August (zoomed in):

The real danger is if the Ukrainian Army is getting so ground down as be unable to hold the line and Russia achieves a penetration. This was probably a more serious concern a month ago, but with Russia slowing, it is looking less likely. Also, the weather will get colder and sometime in November, operations will have to halt. So, if Ukraine can hold for the next two months, then it is probably good until spring 2025. It is debatable at this point if Russia will get to Pokrovsk, let alone take it.

I am not sure I am going to put together a blog post on losses in the Pokrovsk campaign like I did for Kursk (see: So what have the Russians lost around Sudzha? – The Dupuy Institute). 

Warspotting is a site that takes all those reports and photographs of tanks, IFVs and other vehicles and equipment destroyed, and plots them to a map. They are here: Map ∙ WarSpotting — documented material losses in Russo-Ukrainian war

They do report for August and September of 2024 a number of Russian vehicles in and around Sudzha. There is probably a way of posting the map to the blog, but let me describe what we are seeing (as of the evening of 9 September 2024):

1. There are two vehicles destroyed from March 2024 in the western part of the oblast, and two in May and June near Korenevo and seven near Sudzha dated May and June. These eleven wrecks are not part of this battle.
2. In the west three pontoon links reported destroyed on 8 September across the Seym River.
3. There are 11 wrecks around Budki from August & September: A Gaz-66 on 31 August 2024 near the Seym River, three pontoon links across the Seym River reported destroyed on 7 September, four KrAZ-255 and two pontoon links reported destroyed on 28 August, a KamAZ 6×6 truck reported destroyed on 28 August 2024. Clearly some clever selective targeting.
4.  4 wrecks: Further to the southeast down the Seym River is a KamAZ 8×8 truck that is part of the pontoon bridging units. It was reported destroyed 20 August 2024. To its north is a KamAZ 6×6 truck, also reported destroyed 20 August 2024. North of there is a BMP 1 or 2 and BMP-2M “Berezhok’ reported destroyed on 24 August 2024. 
5. Further north there are eight wrecked trucks in Oktyabrskoye on highway E38 This includes seven KamAZ 6×6 and one Ural-4320, all dated 8 August 2024. 
6. Outside of Korenevo are nine wrecks:  two Ural-4320 dated 12 August and 7 September, KamAZ 6×6 dated 12 August, Ural-43206 dated 2 September, UAZ-452 dated 18 August, BTR-82A(M) dated 7 September, unknown T-80 OBr. 2022 tank variant dated 23 August, T-90 “Proryv’ tank reported captured on 19 August (see picture), BTR-82AT dated 17 August 2024.
7. Clustered around Sudzha are 18 wrecks: one KamAZ 6×6 dated 7 August, KA-52 “alligator” attack helicopter dated 10 August, six T-80BVM Obr. 2022 tanks dated 6, 8 (captured), 9 and 10 August, two KamAZ 6×6 tractor unit dated 6 August, GAZ “Tigr-M’ dated 8 August, two BTR-82A(M) dated 14 and 21 August, two Ural-4320 dated 7 and 16 August, two BMP-3 dated 13 August, and one unknown vehicle date 5 September 2024.
8. Note that two T-80s are designated to be from the 4th Tank Division (First Guards Tank Army) and one is designated as taken out by the 80th Air Assault Brigade.  

This is a total of 53 wrecks (including eight pontoon links) and includes eight tanks, eight IFVs, and one APC.

Warspotting does not record Ukrainian losses.

Now Naalsio (@naalsio26) is also tracking losses for both sides during this operation. They are reporting on Twitter:

                                     Russian losses                        Ukrainian losses

6-13 August               22 (4 tanks)                              29 (4 tanks, 8 IFVs)

As of 15 August         +5 (+2 tanks, +3 IFVs)       +22 (+4 IFVs)

As of 20 August        +13 (+5 tanks, +2 IFVs)     +14 (+4 IFVs)

As of 27 August        +19 (+3 tanks, +3 IFVs)     +22 (+5 tanks, + 7 IFVs)

As of 3 September  +12 (+1 tank)                          +19 (+2 tanks, + 6 IFVs)

As of 9 September  +12 (+1 IFV)                            +17 (+6 IFVs)

Total losses:            83 (15 tanks, 9 IFVs)       123 (11 tanks, 35 IFVs)

There is a discrepancy in Russian losses between Warspotting with 53 items destroyed/captured including 8 tanks, 8 IFVs and Naalsio with 83 items destroyed/captured including 15 tanks, 9 IFVs.

 

See: (1) Naalsio on X: “#Kursk Offensive confirmed equipment losses as of 13 August 2024 In summary: 29 Ukrainian 🇺🇦 losses vs. 22 Russian 🇷🇺 losses This list includes all losses in Kursk Oblast, Russia and Sumy Oblast, Ukraine since the offensive began on 06 August 2024. Spreadsheet showing the https://t.co/Uc2NOpLMoZ” / X

The original Battle of Kursk (4 July – 23 August 1943) was actually the single largest battle in World War II. This one is a lot smaller.

One will note that this map (from the book Kursk: The Battle of Prokhorovka) does include Sudzha, just to the northeast of Sumy.

Now I have blogged about this second Battle of Kursk before on 15 August: The Second Battle of Kursk – The Dupuy Institute. My concluding remarks were: “Anyhow, this was a clever move by Ukraine…Its impact has probably been overrated by many commentators.”

So, over the last three weeks, the Ukrainian control in and around Kursk has expanded slightly, from about 1,000 square kilometers (about the size of Fairfax County) to around 1,300 square kilometers. It is clear that Ukraine has taken all it can or wants to, and it now settled into a holding operation.

Around 28 August, the Russian Ministry of Defense claimed that Ukraine had 5,000 troops inside of Kursk oblast. This sounds about right. I gather the offensive was initially conducted on 6 August by two brigades, the 22nd Mechanized Brigade and the 82nd Air Assault Brigade, with the 80th Air Assault Brigade added early on to the mix by 10 August (when they reported capturing a T-80 at Sudzha). Now Wikipedia lists nine Ukrainian maneuver brigades in their order of battle, but I really don’t buy into that. If they had two-three reinforced brigades involved and partly or mostly committed, then one would end up with 5,000 or so troops deployed forward. It does seem to line up. I don’t know why they would need to or want to commit more.

Russia has not pulled any troops from its rather slow advance on Pokrovsk. they may have pulled some from around Kharkiv.  Russian has at least 557,000 ground troops (see previous blog post for details) with at least 450,000 of them deployed in Ukraine. That gave them 102,000 or so troops in the rear, they could shift to contain and battle up the Ukrainian Kursk oblast penetration. This should be enough, even though their quality is suspect (I assume more of the troops in the rear are still training up). Around 5 September, Zelenskyy (President of Ukraine) claimed that Russian had moved 60,000 soldiers into the Kursk region. I suspect this figure is high, although it is possible. 

The only real surprise so far in the lack of urgency on the part of Russia in reducing this penetration. They have clearly moved troops in the area, containing the breached area, but so far have not done any major attacks to reduce the penetration. Perhaps this is because they are using only partly trained rear elements and recent conscripts, and really don’t want to conduct failed attacks and run up the losses.  

So, not much has changed around Kursk and things have only changed slowly around Pokrovsk. I will go into that in a later blog post. 

Got a couple of more blog posts coming out this week on the subject.

 

The Battle of Kursk (1943) was the largest battle of World War II. I have three books out on the subject (the big book, The Battle of Prokhorovka and Aces at Kursk). There are two more planned (The Battle of Tolstoye Woods and The Tank Fields of Prokhorovka). I also have one book out in the war in Ukraine (The Battle for Kyiv), one that we are about to submit another to the publisher (The Siege of Mariupol) and several more planned. I have also done a couple of hundred blog posts on the Russo-Ukrainian War. So, I guess as measured by page count, I am kind of an expert. Still, this doesn’t mean that I have any unique knowledge or understanding as to what is going on right now in Ukraine; but let me take a shot at it.

Now, this Second Battle of Kursk is nowhere near the size of the first one, but like the first one, it is also really not at Kursk. In fact, this seems to be a fairly small affair, involving elements of two Ukrainian brigades and so far no significant Russian forces. The area involved is the size of Fairfax County. Ukraine has taken around 1,000 square kilometers. This is not particularly significant, making up less than 0.002% of Russia. It is not a region of any particular economic value. The population of the main village in the occupied area, Sudzha, is last reported as 5,127.  The whole Sudzha district (which is 996 sq. kilometers) is 26,964 (2010 census and is now probably less).

This operation is just a classic case of hitting them where they ain’t. There was a reason Russia was not defending this border area. Ukraine also does not directly defend large parts of its border areas. What I assume both sides do (and this is an assumption) is to hold a couple of regiments or brigades back in central locations, ready to move towards the border if need be. So far, it does not appear that Russia is doing even that. I suspect Ukraine is, and it may have been some of those forces around Sumy that were used to conduct this operation. So a large extended masking operation probably was not needed, the forces used were already nearby. But, neither side has a continued fortified border to the northwest of Kharkiv, so these little land grabs are possible by either of them. They are relatively meaningless militarily.

But, it could result in an expansion of the front. Right now, the front has been effectively 700 kilometers in length (see: The front is really not 1,200 kilometers long – rev. 1 – The Dupuy Institute). This excludes all that area to the northwest of Kharkiv, including Sumy to Chernihiv. It also excludes the Kakhovka Reservoir and the part of the Dnipro River going down from there to Kherson. So, it is possible, by expanding the front to include the entire border between Ukraine and Russia, that we could end up with a 1,200 kilometer front line. Who benefits from that?  

Right now Russian has about 450,000 troops located in Ukraine (Ukrainian estimate, Putin says 617,000). I am guessing that Ukraine has 300,000 to 400,000 opposite them and engaged with them. Ukraine supposedly has more than 700,000 mobilized, but I gather many are still training and holding down inactive or rear areas (like, for example Sumy and Chernihiv). The Russian Army, according to Wikipedia (IISS estimate for 2024 is the source) consists of the “Ground Forces” of 500,000 (including 100,000 conscripts) and the airborne forces of 45,000 (2023, source TASS). Their naval infantry are 12,000. So, 557,000 ground troops. There are also air force, navy and rocket forces for a total armed forces strength of 1,320,000 (December 2023, AP). Also see: Density of Deployment in Ukraine – The Dupuy Institute. Theoretically, if Ukraine has 700,000 mobilized (as the president was claiming in 2023), then Ukraine could gain an advantage by stretching out the front line. I really don’t think that is the case. 

So what is the Ukrainian objectives? Are they going to set up a Kursk Peoples Republic or hold the territory? I doubt it. I assume over the next week or two, Russia will build up its force in the area, and I suspect the most likely answer is that Ukraine will declare victory and go home, withdrawing from the area as the pressure increases.

The problem is that if you hold this Fairfax County-size piece of property inside of Russia, you not only have to commit one or two or three brigades to holding the area, but you have to also secure the left and right flanks of this area with ground troops. This is at least a brigade on each flank. So now, we are talking about 3 to 5 or more brigades committed to this effort. The Ukrainian army is only around 40 to 60 or so brigades active (I have not attempted to do a count in over a year). Are they really going to commit 10% of their ground forces to hold this little area. I doubt it.

So, I suspect Ukraine will withdraw. Still, the operation does three things for them:

1. Propaganda value.
2. They have captured over 100 Russian prisoners which they can later exchange. Ukraine had thousands captured in 2022 and have never held enough Russian prisoners to exchange for all the people Russia holds. This helps.
3. They force the Russians to more seriously protect these border regions, which they obviously were not doing. This ties down more forces from a ground army of 557K that has 450K in Ukraine.

Anyhow, this was a clever move by Ukraine, but hardly a brilliant piece of operational art, as quite simply, no significant Russian forces were enveloped and destroyed. In the end, winning large extended conventional wars is usually done by destroying armies. This does not do that. Its impact has probably been overrated by many commentators. 

 

Also see: 

The Russo-Ukrainian War is still a limited war – The Dupuy Institute

Area Taken in Ukraine – The Dupuy Institute

Just saw some great graphics from @War_Mapper that is worth repeating (dating goes from Feb. 2022 to July 2024).

His map as of 1 August is here: 

Now, he is saying that for the month of July there was a net gain of around 177 square kilometers (68 square miles). This is kind of like taking an area the size of 17% of Fairfax County or almost all of Washington DC. 

A numerical count is provided here:

 

This from November 2023 to July 2024 totals 776.59 square kilometers (300 square miles). This is almost 75% of the area of Fairfax County. Or, to match it up to a state, it is almost 0.2% of the state of California or 12% of the state of Delaware. Not earth shaking, but nibbling. As it is, Russian currently controls 17.72% of Ukraine.

For the record, @War_Mapper provided a number of maps that were used in my book The Battle for Kyiv and provided one map for our upcoming book The Siege of Mariupol.

With the help of some volunteer labor, we have produced a more precise set of front-line traces. I have done a couple of quick and dirty estimates before, but I never took the time to measuring it up right. Now we have done something a little more exacting. The google maps with the borders that we used is here: Google Earth. Clicking on the left hand menu will allow one to see how the border was measured. This was the work of Jack Flairty.

1. Length of the front line on 1 January 2014: This is land border with Russia.

• 1,974 kilometers
• 1,227 miles

2. Length of the front line 2016-2021: The border of the LPR and DPR and Ukraine.

• 336 kilometers
• 227 miles

3. Length of the front line 24 February 2022: This includes 1) part of the border with Belarus that is used by Russia, 2) part of the border with Russia from Kyiv, Chernihiv, Sumy to Kharkiv, 3) the border of the LPR and DPR, 4) the border with Crimea.

• 1,706 kilometers
• 1,060 miles

4. Length of the front line 1 March 2022: This includes 1) part of the border with Belarus that is used by Russia (they did expand it), 2) the front line trace from Kyiv to Chernihiv, to Sumy, to Kharkhiv down to Izyum, 3) the front line trace down to Mariupol. 4) the front line trace through Zaporizhzhia and Kherson province.

• 3,011 kilometers
• 1,871 miles

5. Length of the front line 1 April 2022.

• 2,333 kilometers
• 1,450 miles

6. Length of the front line 1 May 2022: This no longer includes Belarus.

• 2,144 kilometers
• 1,332 miles

7. Length of the front line 1 June 2022

• 2,418 kilometers
• 1,503 miles

8. Length of the front line 1 July 2022

• 1,900 kilometers
• 1,180 miles

9. Length of the front line 1 August 2022

• 1,753 kilometers
• 1,089 miles

10. Length of the front line on 1 June 2024.

• 1,633 kilometers
• 1,015 miles

 

Previous posts on the subject:

The front is really not 1,200 kilometers long – rev. 1 – The Dupuy Institute

Length of Front Line Trace in Ukraine – The Dupuy Institute