JDAMS have range of tens ok kilometers so I don't think it was an F-16.
The War in the Ukraine
- Thread starter SampanViking
- Start date
I’ll give the Ukrainians credit. They’ve learned from their mistakes from the debacle last summer. They didn’t telegraph nothing to the media. Matter of fact they are still silent about the operation. They still had reserves and held back their best units from the Donbas front while the lines are breaking significantly especially in the Pokrovsk front. Their best equipment and brigades are in this fight and they have made great gains. And they’ll likely make even more gains but the question is what are the objectives of this offensive?
Initially I thought it would be to relieve pressure from the Kharkov front. Russia and Ukraine are basically fighting in a standstill bloody urban battle in Vovchansk. But that isn’t happening as Russia hasn’t not pulled any meaningful units from the front to the Kursk offensive. Same with Donbas. Russia is still on the move in Donbas. It appears to be an operation to show the West that Ukraine can still fight on. To maybe cause a panic within Russia to stir turmoil and have Putin face domestic internal unrest. Another is to have leverage in the negotiating table. The problem for Ukraine is how long can they sustain this offensive into Russian land? Will they simply do what Russia did in Kharkov which was to stop and fortify the areas where they have gains? Or will they open another front to create confusion?
It seems to me they have gone all in with this operation. The problem for them is that Russia is moving large number of reserve forces to the front. And they are going to bring in serious firepower. The risk is this offensive not only get defeated but Russia then moves to counter attack to take Sumy. Russia may seriously start the border buffer zone offensive that they have been threatening to do since last spring. And this may turn into a total fiasco for Kiev. I know it’s cliche because everyone is saying this but it’s very similar tot the battle of the Bulge. Ukraine may end up losing more than they’ve gained.
Initially I thought it would be to relieve pressure from the Kharkov front. Russia and Ukraine are basically fighting in a standstill bloody urban battle in Vovchansk. But that isn’t happening as Russia hasn’t not pulled any meaningful units from the front to the Kursk offensive. Same with Donbas. Russia is still on the move in Donbas. It appears to be an operation to show the West that Ukraine can still fight on. To maybe cause a panic within Russia to stir turmoil and have Putin face domestic internal unrest. Another is to have leverage in the negotiating table. The problem for Ukraine is how long can they sustain this offensive into Russian land? Will they simply do what Russia did in Kharkov which was to stop and fortify the areas where they have gains? Or will they open another front to create confusion?
It seems to me they have gone all in with this operation. The problem for them is that Russia is moving large number of reserve forces to the front. And they are going to bring in serious firepower. The risk is this offensive not only get defeated but Russia then moves to counter attack to take Sumy. Russia may seriously start the border buffer zone offensive that they have been threatening to do since last spring. And this may turn into a total fiasco for Kiev. I know it’s cliche because everyone is saying this but it’s very similar tot the battle of the Bulge. Ukraine may end up losing more than they’ve gained.
Tbh Russia knows any major mobilization from satellite and intercepted comms. Through they cannot be certain of the exact attack scale. So not doing twitter warfare doesn't make too much of a difference.
Russia's side of the border has no fortifications. So Ukrainians pushing in essentially have to clear long distances without cover while being freely bombed by everything Russia has. Inside Ukraine, AFU could always mitigate air power by fortifications, but here, there's nothing.
Maybe Ukraine had goals to achieve some quick objective in Kursk and retreat, but the situation now seems to have spiraled into one of the worst blunders in the war so far. It'll be several brigades fully destroyed, since there's no tunnels or trenches Ukraine can use on Russian territory to mitigate retreat losses.
Its been said that they put their best brigades in this attack, if the Russians trap them there it will be pretty bad, no one will return back.
I think this could be their last desperate push before they exhaust their best remaining manpower and equipment. Especially if they try to hold this land instead of pulling back.
They’re not gonna trap them. Any sort of defeat is going to look very anti-climactic.
Most likely, at some point Russians will finally consolidate enough forces to make an advance too costly for Ukraine. At that point Ukraine will likely start either trying to consolidate or slowly withdrawing.
I don’t think Ukraine will be able to dig in, but Ukrainians tend to be resilient. They’ve surprised me before.
Either way, this party won’t be going for a long time.
It seems like the Ukrainians established themselves in a fairly defensible position, with villages and treelines, especially towards the east.
If the Russians can assemble a much bigger force, then it should be no problem pushing Ukraine back, but that remains to be seen.
Either way, the fact that it is Ukraine and not Russia who extends the frontline is a very strong message from Kiev.
Perhaps the plan is to pull some Russian aviation further west, to create better opportunities for F16s which may get stationed around Kiev?
Or maybe this show of force is just a bluff, squandering valuable munitions and manpower for the sake of optics?
Russians BVR advantage negated this tho. Also Russians may fly from Belarus like early in war. They can pick Ukrainian fighters flying over Kiev.
We'll see about this. The Ukraine must be able to secure their logistics to reinforce their gain without being bombed. They will need to bring significant asset e.g patriot much closer to the front to say, deny Russians from using Kursk military airport.
It may have been an attack on some logistics bases far enough from the border with Ukraine.
If the Ukrainian intention is to open a front to relieve the Kharkiv counteroffensive, this effort at Kursk will force the Russians to move the reserve forces of the Northern Group that are engaged in Kharkiv to move to Kursk, which will put even more pressure on the Russian units on the Kharkiv front.
There are reports of Patriot deployment for the Kursk offensive, although without confirmation.