11mo ago

Ukraine ambushes Russian convoy in Kursk as Kremlin declares emergency

www.theguardian.com

Ukrainian forces staged an overnight ambush on a Russian convoy 25 miles inside the international border in Russia’s Kursk province, as the Kremlin declared a federal emergency and said it was transferring extra forces to try to snuff out a four-day incursion that has badly damaged its credibility.

A video circulated by Russian military bloggers showed a destroyed convoy, with bodies just visible inside some trucks, on the E38 east-west highway at Oktyabrskoe, a location far deeper inside Russia than any previously confirmed fighting since Ukraine’s forces crossed the border on Tuesday.

Commentators said the attack, reminiscent of Ukrainian attacks on Russian troops besieging Kyiv in the first weeks of the war, demonstrated an effective hit-and-run strategy, but the incursion appeared likely to draw an escalating response from the Kremlin, and its overall outcome remains profoundly uncertain.

80 comments

Fucking love this. Think about it:
While Russia concentrates defenses in the southern Donetsk region, Ukraine simply pushes forward into Russia itself and grabs easy land. Like squeezing a balloon, the bulge finds the least resistance.
It causes domestic unrest and panic.
It forces Russia to spread thinner their already-thin resources.
It gives Ukraine a bargaining-chip at the negotiating table.
It helps nullify net-territorial gains made by Russia elsewhere.
It gives Ukrainian forces a boost of morale.
- Putin makes a big deal out of how fighting in Ukraine is by volunteers and contained so that "regular russians" are safe. This fight goes on in areas defended by conscripted soldiers, breaking that safety layer.
  
  If the aggression against Ukraine is maintained by Russian volunteer forces and Russia has to relocate them now, it means that there are no conscripts to use.
  Using conscripts pretty much means that Putin admits that it never was a special military operation with 3-4 days to take Kiev. It pretty much sends signals to the Russian people that he is far from being in control and able to contain the situation.
  
  Putin makes a big deal out of how fighting in Ukraine is by volunteers
  How true even is that? My understanding is that they've been throwing conscripts at the front the entire war.
- It also allows Ukraine to continue playing defensively now that they have the territory which has shown to be a good strategy so far for bleeding Russia of troops and equipment.
- But for how long...
My, how the fucking turn tables
- Risky move. How russians will retaliate?
  
  I heard Russia may move to invade Ukraine in response to this risky move.
  
  Complain at the UN about how this is totally unfair and they’re not allowed to do that?
  That is not a joking suggestion; I predict that sometime next week, that exact thing will happen.
  
  That's the point, how will they indeed?
  This forces Russia into a real dilemma. They can't just obliterate the Ukrainians with artillery, since doing so would destroy their own oil distribution hub and cut off their own income. They also can't not do it, since this is a major fiasco, and it becomes worse as time goes by.
  So indeed, how will the Russians retaliate? All the risk is on their side now.
  
  You mean retaliate more than bombing schools and hospitals like they've been doing for the last two years? Kidnapping children and slaughtering civilians?
  
  By counter attacking? Which I'm sure the Ukrainians are ready for? This is already a war.
  
  Same way they always retaliate against superior force. Terror bombing.
  
  They don't have any non nuclear retaliation options they're not already using, and nuclear is a profoundly bad idea.
  
  They'll probably nuke themselves.
No ambush.
Surprise readiness test.
No incursion.
Special surprise timeshare operations.
I have to say, this is both incredibly impressive and absolutely fascinating. After such a long stalemate, it's wonderful to see Ukraine make such progress towards repelling their invaders.
that has badly damaged its credibility.
People should REALLY stop using that word when they mean perceived military strength!
Military strength isn't credibility and the Russian government isn't credible no matter how well or how badly its army of fascists and forced conscripts is performing.
- I read it as credibility with Russia's citizens. They believed that their government will prevent any attack coming to Russian soil.
  
  Yes, this is how I understood it too. Putin is only in power because the leaders and citizens believe he is a strong leader. Allowing the enemy to strike so far into Russian territory weakens that credibility and risks someone removing him.
- Yeah, and even Putin isn't actually crazy enough to do anything with those but THREATENING to use them.
Rybar, a Russian military blogger, said Ukraine’s tactics were to use its armoured vehicles to head towards Russian positions and use a third of them to tie down the defenders while the rest were “bypassing it, entering nearby settlements and setting up ambushes”.
If I were the Ukrainians, I'd send more reinforcements and keep the beachhead up. Russia can have their land back when they give back the parts of Ukraine they illegally annexed in 2014 and 2021.
- As a completely uncredentialed internet commenter, this looks like true maneuver warfare in action. The goal is destroying the ability of enemy forces rather than capturing territory. A subtle but important distinction. Any territory taken should be in furtherance of the main goal, and if holding the territory distracts from that it is to be abandoned.
  (If numbers are anything close to believable) this has been happening inside Ukraine where defensible positions are held by Ukrainians to cause huge losses to attacking Russian forces, yet the Ukrainians don't immediately press the local advance often to take back disputed territory. A big exception was Ukraine's initial, and I think it will come out as disastrous armored offensive early in the war, probably a result of over confidence in thinking they'd whittled down the Russian forces that early. Looks like lessons learned as Ukraine has become much more cautious of large scale offensives. I believe last year they were assaulting Russian defensive lines inside Ukraine but (if numbers are to be believed) they were inflicting more losses on the defenders than they were taking, which is insane for assaulting static positions. Russia seems to have held those positions by simply pouring fresh troops into them over and over, sacrificing men to prevent the lines on the map from moving. Years of those kinds of losses seem to be at the point where Russia can't pivot to defend itself in any kind of reasonable time. Even if the Ukrainians pull out of the Russian territory, the damage by showing what they are able to do is done.
  In a funny twist, at least from the snippets of news reporting (which I stress we should always be willing to rethink) it sounds like the Ukraine incursion is using a sort of variant of "deep battle" by bypassing enemy defenses with the majority of its forces. This is funny because early in the war the massive Russian tank losses from their disorganized dollar store thunder run were explained as expected deep battle losses by pro-Russians on the internet.
- I read that this attack isn't meant to keep the territory occupied and is more of wake up call for the Russians.
  
  Yeah, the Kremlin has to look strong right now, so they need to scramble to put together a force to deal with this, and the Russian army isn't nimble.
  
  For why? What does that achieve?
- Maybe that the plan and stopping the oil line to Hungary to pressure them is how they think they will get in the EU.
but the incursion appeared likely to draw an escalating response from the Kremlin, and its overall outcome remains profoundly uncertain.
That's the entire point. Force the Russians to over commit. Then pull back. Depending on how involved the Ukrainians want the area to be they might stick to raiding. Or they could be digging in hard behind the raiding right now, making ready to make the Russians pay dearly for every inch. But either way they know it's temporary.
Unless the Russians fuck it up so badly the Ukrainians don't need to leave.
- Well if the Russian playbook is the same, they will have to raze their own villages to get them back.
  Even if they now activate conscripts to do this, the casualty rate will be high and involve people from all over Russia. So the Russian public will be made aware of the costs.
  And Ukranians can do what they do on the eastern front, pull back in defensive manner and concede ground in a controlled manner. Forcing the Russians to remain on the offensive when they actually cannot anymore.
  I personally think the Russians are overcommitted already, cannibalizing everything everywhere. We will now see what they can muster from what is left.
  
  Well we know they have internal reserves because they have troops elsewhere on the border with NATO and the capital guard they always keep back in case of a wild Wagner.
- Force the {enemy} to over commit. Then pull back.
  As used to stunning effect in Vietnam. And Afghanistan. And Afghanistan. And Afghanistan. And Afghanistan.
What is certain is russia can no longer ignore their lightly defended border drawing resources from their occupation.
it’s sounds almost like a Finnish guerrilla ”motti-tactic” which was used in Winter War against soviets. Hit and run and they even didnt know what hit them. In motti tactic you hit a single road convoy/unit in a position where they can’t escape. Very effective in forest area roads.
- Battle of Suomussalmi
How long until China simply attacks Russia and absorbs 50%+ of their land mass?
- China won’t attack Russia. They’ll simply start moving there and gaslight that it’s Chinese land.
  
  Literally Texas
- I dont understand, why doesn't Ross, the largest of the friends, not simply eat the other friends?
- China has zero interest in harming Russia at this stage. The US and its allies are investing massive resources in Ukraine, so is Russia. Russia needs chinas goodwill and tech to keep going, that’s a win. The US can’t use the money it puts into Ukraine into the pacific, that’s another win.
  China is happy if everything stays as it is
- There's probably some plan for that depending on how much chaos occurs when Putin croaks. Their objectives will likely include securing as many nukes as possible. Land mass will be secondary.
Wolverines!
use its armoured vehicles to head towards Russian positions and use a third of them to tie down the defenders while the rest were “bypassing it, entering nearby settlements and setting up ambushes”
The mythical Deep Battle strategy actually being used?
If only there was a way to stop this
Media Bias Fact Check | bot support
- The guardian - credibility medium 🤦‍♂️
  
  Fox news gets the same credibility rating of "mixed" as the guardian, which should tell you all that you need to know about the credibility of the mbfc site.
  Edit for context: fox news commitment to factuality, is so bad that they knowingly air news that they themselves know to be false: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/02/fox-news-dominion-lawsuit-trump/673132/ Rampant misinformation, sitting on news until they can release at a more opportune time, selective reporting, airing heavily edited footage to make their guy look less like an idiot, ... These are all things that fox news does, but I'm hard pressed to find any examples of the guardian doing any of these. And yet still somehow, the mbfc site wants us to believe that the guardian is as untrustworthy as fox news. Somehow I'm not buying it.
  
  wtf. What is it with this bot
  
  This bot is a disservice, moderator should take it down.
  
  It would help if they'd stop failing fact checks by using unreliable sources. If you click the MBFC link and then scroll down to the "failed fact checks" section you'll find several references (including sourcing) to this.
- Medium? It’s a British broadsheet, they actually have standards. Most of them are credible (unlike the tabloids like the Mail or the Scum).

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