Top general says Ukrainian forces have captured almost as much Russian territory in the last week as Russia has land in Ukraine this year

This bit seems relevant, given that Ukraine's stated intention has always been reclaiming their own land:

The overall goal of the incursion is not immediately clear. Conflict analysts have suggested that Ukraine may be trying to alleviate some pressure on its forces elsewhere along the sprawling front line, gain leverage for potential territorial negotiations with Russia, or even just humiliate Moscow and boost morale in Kyiv.

That, or “reclaiming their own land” was a bit more expansive than we all realized /s
- Technically Earth is the native land of all Ukrainians.
- Can you imagine how dumb we would all feel if Russia was right? (/s)
They're doing all three of those, and also may be effectively flanking the Kremlin's defense along that part of the front.
I've heard Kursk has the gas pipeline to Europe.
- Had.
  
  The Ukrainians overran it and disabled it. It won't be working for a very long time.
Always best to keep them guessing. Strategically, it's gold.

Time for denazification of Russia.

we need to stop calling everything we don't like nazism. Russia will need to be de-Putin'd
- Sounds like something a Nazi would say.... /s

So... Ukraine is capturing Russia as fast as Russia initially expected to capture Ukraine.

It would be absolutely hilarious, if the whole thing wasn't so sad. Nevertheless, it's a welcome change of direction in this war and shows what a determined country and army can do against such a big aggressor.

I just hope it actually changes something in the end. Let's hope Putler meets his window to fall out of soon.

Slava Ukraini

Heroyam Slava 🇺🇦

Zelenskyy went from being a comedian to clowning on Putin in only a few years.

Literally the "best defence is a good offence" case

Is it? Russia just got new claims for this war.
- Yeah they can claim to have fucked around and found out.
- Casus belli typically doesn't work after the fact

Logistics is king folks, remember that.

I'm sure access to Western intelligence doesn't hurt either.
- And having competent generals.
  
  Even as we speak, one of the few good and well respected Russian generals who dared speak out at the poor leadership of the general staff, had been arrested for supposed fraud. https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-arrested-general-ivan-popov-fraud-d8c4d6a7d447ff801b3f15bc540f77b6
I forget who said it, but an American general once said "Amateurs discuss tactics; professionals discuss logistics."
Build one of those on tracks, that'll show the russians who's boss

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_cream_barge

East Ukraine sounds like it might be a nice place one day.

Here's to Ukraine becoming the capital of the larger Ukrainian Federation that will be needed after the fall of Russia.

I mean, fuck Putin, but don't delude yourself that this will get easier
Why in the world would you want to create a new iteration of the same shit?
- What do you mean? Ukraine is not Russia. The corruption of Ukraine is from Putler placed politicians.

Is this the timeline where Ukraine kills Putin and puts his head on a Pike? Find out next time on dragon ball z!

What did the fish do to deserve that?
- It knows what it did

Maybe they should just swap countries and be done with it.

I'd much rather it all become Ukraine. They are better people.
- дякую

I still wonder what their main objective is

To disperse the army from the northeastern fronts. Russia is now forced to defend the entire border and cannot focus their attacks on their previous objectives.

This is a good move.
- That, and they can potentially dismantle staging areas for planes and other infrastructure (in this case gas pipeline).
- I keep looking at maps and wondering how Ukraine haven't been routed and cut off in enemy territory with no supply lines. What they're doing seems borderline insane but more power to them!
Leverage for negotiations.

Their gains would be much less for the same expense, were they in areas where Russia expects to be attacked.

It's the same pattern with bullies - they are always surprised when the victim is no longer forbidden to hit everywhere and not only where the bully took initiative.

Worked in Artsakh in 90's too against Soviet and Azeri forces. Sadly the last few years (or two decades) have undone this largely.

But just like in Artsakh, they shouldn't agree to any frozen status, or it will end just like for Artsakh. They should just keep advancing until Russia does something to guarantee their security.
In my completely unresearched opinion?

"We just kept advancing, and it just kept working".
I hope its not just for negotiating.

I hope by breaking the Russian front, they have created openings that they can now exploit to tear down Russian defenses.

Russia has created a really difficult frontal defense thats many layers of mine fields and defensive positions interlaced. But now their sides and backs are exposed and it's much easier for Ukraine to out flank the defense and unseat Russian defenses.
- Why hope it's "not just for negotiating"? I mean why not use this as leverage to force the Russians to negotiate on Ukraine's terms?
Could it be for the "peace" negotiations? "OK, we freeze the country's borders as they are right now, you let us join NATO and the EU, and we get what we captured".
"Catch us if you can"
Mess around! Mess around! Putin's head is a footie ball! Mess around!

So sad Vlad

Does Ukraine get an exception from the general advice against invading Russia? Winter is coming. But they kinda have some advantages over prior attempts.

Yes they do get an exception because they are just as familiar to the climate as the orcs. It's not like Kursk et al has proper defenses RUs can hole up inside. The orcs literally just lost the Kursk battallian HQ building lol (forgive the leddit link)
Note I don't know anything about it.

I would say if they are just disrupting rather than trying to hold it, they would be in much more sane shape than the historical advice that mostly applies to would-be conquerors. Even if they are trynig to hold it as a bargaining chip, it's probably less ambitious than the historically usual goal of trying to conquer "Russia".

Is this a real thing? I only hear news about it on a couple niche youtube channels that I am not sure aren't propaganda. Searching "Ukraine" on Lemmy for the last week yields a very small number of results. I haven't heard word one about it from my mainstream sources. What the fuck? Is there an embargo on this or something??

That's not the impression I've been getting. This has been covered extensively from places ranging from BBC and Telegraph to PBS, and numerous reddit subs. I haven't seen this much activity centered on Ukraine in a while.
I've seen Preston Stewart covering it on his various platforms, although he hasn't given the sort of breakdown op is asking for

I've been looking for some sort of analysis of this Kursk incursion but have come up empty handed. I'm looking for something along the lines of Markus Reisner's analyses.

In particular, I'm wondering what the likely paths are to altering the course of the war.

How likely is it that Ukraine will be able to hold this territory? Will they be able to use it as a staging area to launch additional attacks?

Is it likely to alter the artillery equation? Russia currently fires 3-5 times as many artillery shells as Ukraine does. Does this do something like limiting their production rates or their ability to deliver ordinance to the front lines?

Is it likely that Ukraine killed or captured enough Russian troops to impact the broader war?

A phrase like, "That figure is almost as much territory as Russia has seized in Ukraine this year." kind of implies that there has been a shift in the momentum of the war and that we can expect such announcements more regularly going forward. Is that actually likely?

My pessimistic guess is that this was a brilliant tactical move that will ultimately get steamrolled by Russia's sheer mass, but I'd love to read an analysis from someone with more expertise.

this has to be something designed to pull forces away from other places. I don't think Ukraine is planning on holding it for any length of time.

we saw video come out about 200 miles from the front in Kursk showing military transport trucks that had been struck by Ukraine as they were going to reinforce the region, which means Ukraine has dedicated deep strike capabilities to this part of the battlefield.

I think the intention is to kill and destroy as much Russian personnel and materiel as they can while it's being transported. like they've mapped out all of the travel lines in to and out of Kursk, and they have dedicated weapons platforms prepared to destroy anything that comes up those roads. they'll be able to blitz a whole bunch of Russian equipment without even having to engage them on the ground, if those trucks were full (there were stacked bodies in the video), that's 300 casualties without having to put any of your infantry in danger.
- If that's the case then Ukraine would need to repeat the Kursk invasion a lot before it made a difference.
  
  Trying to out attrit an opponent with many times the population and GDP is a pretty tall order.
  
  I'm trying to differentiate between things we might like and things that are actually likely.
Blitzing into largely undefended territories and nabbing large amounts of territory is kind of the easy part. As anyone who plays any sort of RTS, the key question is how you set up defenses and maintain logistics to thwart counter-offensives. The good news is that Ukraine has options. They can choose to dig in before Russia amasses troops to attack and legitimately try to hold onto the territory, or they can simply back out and use this as a skirmish to divide Russian forces before launching another offensive elsewhere.

This seems to a) be intended to divide Russian attention and spread their forces out, b) be used in negotiation and applying domestic pressure to Putin, and c) provide a greater buffer for air-defense to counter inbound artillery and missiles. Who knows for sure though.
- That makes sense. I'd have questions about all of those too
  
  a) be intended to divide Russian attention and spread their forces out Do we know if that's happening? Russia has a lot of people and equipment and it's not obvious to me that they need to pull many resources from other fronts to reinforce Kursk.
  
  b) be used in negotiation and applying domestic pressure to Putin That would make sense too. As long as Ukraine is still holding that territory when those negotiations are going on. Are there any estimates on when those negotiations could happen and if Ukraine will still be in control of Kursk by then?
  
  c) provide a greater buffer for air-defense to counter inbound artillery and missiles
  That true but only in the areas directly near Kursk. Is it likely that this can be repeated along the rest of the battle lines?
  
  Your intuition on what Ukraine is hoping to achieve seems reasonable but I don't know if it's likely to work out that way.
  
  The whole thing makes me think back to the "Ukrainian counteroffensive" from last year. At the time, US advisors were telling them to do a fast combined arms assault on some place like Mariupol, instead of dithering around, letting the Russians build a ton of defenses and then smashing all the fancy US equipment against said defenses. This assault seems almost like what that counteroffensive should have been. I say "almost" because I'm puzzled about the target. Controlling Mariupol would have cut off the entire western half of the Russian assault. They'd have no supplies and nowhere to run to besides going for a swim. Kursk? The benefits are less obvious.
As much as I hate linking to it, you could probably find out by asking in the defcon warning system forums.
- defcon warning system forums
  
  I'll check them out. I'm curious why you wouldn't want to link to them. Do they do something bad?