Today I am going to debunk all the myths about the offensive in the Kursk direction. Back in August I wrote that it seemed like the only reason the UAF attacked in this direction was because it happened to be a lightly defended stretch of the border. “Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.” Now, on to the myth busting.
Myth 1: This attack diverts Russian troops and resources from the Donbass front. That only makes sense if the UAF has numerical superiority, which they don’t anymore. We’re talking very basic math here. Let’s say Team A has 6 men and Team B has 8 men. Team A sends 3 of those men elsewhere, forcing Team B to also send 3 men. That leaves Team A with 3 men and Team B with 5 men. That’s worse, not better.
It is also important to consider that the UAF’s ammunition supply for its best weapons, if not all weapons, is extremely finite. If, being extremely generous here, the UAF gets 30 HIMARS rounds a day, and they send half of it to the Kursk direction, the Donbass front is left with 15. So if the Donbass front had 80% of the needed fire support, it’s now 40%. If it was 40%, it’s now 20%. And note that the more extreme the fires disadvantage, friendly losses accelerate. The same applies to ADA. By doing all this, the UAF is also splitting their equally finite logistics system. Every 100 trucks going North is 100 less trucks going East and South. This should be common sense.
Anyway, pro-Ukraine commentators are arguing the opposite of what they were saying when Russia opened a new front near Kharkov a few months earlier. Clearly, these people are just retroactively saying whatever Ukraine is doing is for the best, even if it’s the literal opposite of what they were saying previously.
Myth 2: Seizing the initiative by going on the offensive is better than passively defending. The difference between “defense” and “offense” at the operational level is largely meaningless, at least in the context this talking point is used. Flexible defense and counter offensives require manpower and resources, which the UAF is now splitting to the Kursk direction for some reason. So instead, strongholds that used to take months to overwhelm are now falling in days due to being improperly manned and supported. How is that a good trade?
Myth 3: Captured territory in Kursk region is a good bargaining chip. This idea is possibly the most nonsensical of them all. The “captured” territory in question is too small to mean anything during negotiations and has nothing of military or economic value on it. If American support ends or Ukraine otherwise loses the means to fight, it won’t matter if they have 100 square kilometers of Russian territory, 1,000 or 10,000. They will have to relinquish it. Remember that in WWI the Germans still held French and Belgian territory when they surrendered, and it made no difference. The choice was to either surrender in France, or wait until Germany was destroyed and surrender anyway. Obviously, forcing the enemy to lose thousands of men storming German cities would have made them less generous, not more generous. The “bargaining chip” argument is moronic. The war will continue until one side loses the ability to fight, or understands that they will lose the ability to fight and there’s no avoiding it.
Myth 4: Putin is humiliated because he can’t protect the Russian people from being killed by Ukrainians and their towns destroyed and looted. I see pro-Ukrainian commentators repeatedly say things like this, and it is easy to sense the excitement as they imagine the death and destruction. Well, if your goal was to convince the few naysayers left in Russia that Ukraine was a threat, then congratulations, mission accomplished.
I invite you to look at my first post about the subject and point out where I was wrong.
Ian Kummer
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