08-27-2024, 05:59 PM
(08-27-2024, 03:43 PM)TrumpCard Wrote: As the resident non-expert speculator, I'm not sure I buy the news about the incursion into Belgorod. ISW, which we all know is highly partisan in favor of Ukraine, still shows Russian control over territory on Ukraine's side of the border near the locations of the reported incursion. That's the same area where Russia put a large mass of forces and took territory from Ukraine a few months ago. Of all the places for Ukraine to find a soft spot and encircle large numbers of enemy troops, that does not seem like the most promising location.Maybe Ukraine had reason to believe that Russia had redeployed the better part of that large mass of troops toward Kursk in order drive the Ukrainians out of that area. Maybe Ukraine knew Russia had not yet redeployed those troops but was intending to do so. Attacking that area will fix those troops in place (hopefully) if they are still there and if they are not it may have become a "soft spot". Arriving on the heels of a redeployment/relief of opposition forces has yielded great results in the past. A "reconnaissance in force" probe risks little and could yield much if those troops were removed. FWIW the troops that participated in Russia's incursion into Ukraine a few months ago are much closer to Kursk than troops from south Ukraine are. Since the previous Russian offensive has wound down those "extra" troops serve little purpose in Belgorod.