Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his generals have a knack for keeping the Russian military off balance. On Sunday they resumed their offensive in Russia’s Kursk Oblast, once again surprising the Russian high command, the Kremlin, and many experts.
Reports of demoralized Ukrainian troops struggling to hold the terrain they captured during the August Kursk Offensive (with at least 40% losses) have been circulating among Western media and Russian milbloggers since November. There are also reports that Ukraine’s French-trained and equipped 155th Mechanized Brigade also lacks the resources of “first-person view drones or sufficiently trained pilots.” And 50 soldiers deserted their unit during training in France, and another 1,700 soldiers refused orders to move.
Nevertheless, as General George Patton said, “When in doubt, attack!” And this is exactly what Ukraine did on three fronts: southern Verdin, central Ruskoye Porechnoye, and central Novosotnitsky.
Ukraine is using British-supplied Challenger 2 tanks and extensive electronic warfare operations to blind Russian drones and allow engineers to open lanes in minefields to facilitate their advance. The success of the new offensive is yet to be determined, but one thing is certain: it has caught the Kremlin’s attention.
And this is likely to have caught the attention of the incoming Trump administration as well.
President-elect Donald Trump’s new special envoy to Ukraine, retired Army Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, recently postponed a fact-finding trip to Kiev and other European capitals until after Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration.
Meanwhile, the Kremlin hastily dispatched General Yunisbek Yevkurov, one of President Vladimir Putin’s top generals, to Kursk to organize and command the Russian National Defense Forces. Yevkurov was promoted by President Putin in December and tasked with managing “Russia’s border defense and African mercenary projects.”
The recent loss of airfields and ports in Syria has brought operations in Africa to a near halt. This allowed the general to carry out an emergency mission.
However, it does not matter which general is in command: General Putin, General Valery Gerasimov, or Defense Minister Andrey Belousov. Given the level of talent and training available to conscripts, mobilized reservists, penal colony residents, and foreign fighters, Russian human wave “meat attack” tactics remain the Kremlin’s first resort.
The Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 (Moshin-Nagant three-barrel rifles), World War I (Dektyaryov machine guns), the Korean War (T -54/55 and PT-76 tanks), in old storage facilities, film studios and museums. This is what I brought.
As former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said, “You go to war with the military you have, not the military you want or hope to have later.” This is what Yevkurov needs to work on.
The Russians are still fighting a war of attrition, utilizing large forces in the form of infantry and artillery. There are many leaders in North Korea named Kim Jong-un who are equally indifferent to the lives of soldiers and people. Current reports suggest North Korea’s M1989 Goksan self-propelled howitzer is “in combat” after it was first reported traveling toward Russia on a railcar last November.
Moscow’s “try harder” technique will only lead to more casualties. Casualties in Russia on Tuesday exceeded 800,000 (1,970 that day). This number now includes more than 3,800 North Korean casualties and a number of foreign fighters from Chechnya.
Putin, Kim and Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov don’t care. Their main focus is the complete destruction of Ukraine, its people and culture.
Russian forces have sought to offset their failures on the battlefield by repeatedly attacking Ukrainian civilian settlements across the country. Moscow is using ballistic and hypersonic missiles and drone strikes launched from sanctuary areas imposed by the Biden administration within Russia’s interior.
Modern weapons of war are used to target civilians, while brute force remains the primary course of action in close combat. But slowly and at terrible cost in life on both sides, the Russians are advancing gradually towards Kurahove, Toretsk, Chasiv Yar and Pokrovsk.
There may be several possible rationales for Sunday’s renewed Kursk offensive. One is to force the Russian military to redeploy its forces from Donbas to prevent further loss of Russian territory. Another option could be a preemptive strike against a joint Russian-North Korean attack to drive Ukrainian forces out of Kursk.
This could also be an opportunity to take advantage of what the intelligence community deems to be a vulnerability. In other words, increasingly less combat effective North Korean units are effectively making Russian defenses vulnerable.
Or, as Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Monday, Ukraine’s position at Kursk may be critical to future negotiations. “Their position in Kursk is important, because it will certainly affect any negotiations that may happen next year,” Blinken said.
The best answer is all of the above. Probably more than that.
The Ukrainian military suffered an average of 1,180 casualties per day in 2024, and 2,030 casualties on November 29 alone, but was unable to stop the flow of Russian troops and equipment into Ukraine. For the soldiers in the trenches, it was Groundhog Day. It’s Groundhog Day, after repelling merciless ground attacks multiple times a day, you return to your next battle location. In Donbas, defense has become the rule.
Prohibition could change that. As we have written on several occasions, providing Ukraine with precision deep-strike weapons to target and destroy Russian, North Korean, and Chechen forces in staging areas and their equipment, weapons, and ammunition before they enter Ukraine. Doing so will provide maneuvering space for follow-on offensive operations. .
With a mass defeat, Ukraine defeats Russia. The ban sets the conditions for defeating the masses and driving Russia out of Ukraine.
Ukraine can only win the war through offensive operations supported by the United States and NATO.
As the 1994 Budapest Memorandum shows, security guarantees are meaningless for Ukraine. Victory solves the Russian problem. President Putin has no intention of honoring the peace plan. President Putin has made it clear that he wants to destroy Ukraine.
Zelensky understands that. Now Kellogg must convince Trump.
Evidence is provided by a new ground offensive in the Kursk region, a recent drone strike targeting a crystal oil storage facility near Engels Airfield, and the destruction of two Russian anti-missile Pantsir-S1 systems and an OSA anti-aircraft vehicle in the Kherson region. Ukraine can fight Russia, and Kiev will not give in to Russia’s outright aggression.
Patton famously told soldiers of the U.S. Third Army in 1944: “Americans love winners and cannot tolerate losers. Americans always play to win.” A peace agreement with Putin is essentially a draw, if not a strategic loss. Now is the time for America to get back to the business of winning.
Colonel (retired)Jonathan SweetHe served as an Army intelligence officer for 30 years.mark tothHe writes about national security and foreign policy.
