When Putin has major setbacks in his Ukraine war he reaches for peace negotiations not nukes - US agrees Ukraine’s incursion into Russia is NOT ESCALATORY - DEFENSIVE to stop border attacks
- NOT a genuine red-line - border buffer zone in Russia
this is how Ukraine can find peace sooner rather than later
I am writing this to help scared people, not geeks interested in the war. So as usual I have to explain there is NO RISK OF NUCLEAR WAR.
Putin’s real red line is a threat to the future of the Russian Federation and the purpose of the nukes is to deter. He wants to make sure nobody even thinks about doing that. The nukes can't achieve anything if used. Their value for Russia is in not being used.
BLOG: How nuclear deterrents work - like a bodyguard - their job is to prevent fights
Ukraine did this to DEFEND ITSELF. Ukraine has NO INTEREST IN ATTACKING RUSSIA. Ukraine is NOT going to continue in some secondary war to try to take over Russia. So Ukraine won’t cross Putin’s real red line.
Ukraine is still doing this just to liberate occupied Ukraine, it has NO NEW OBJECTIVES. The basic thing you need to understand to understand Ukraine’s strategies is that
If Putin withdraws from Ukraine the war will be over tomorrow
It is easy to get bamboozled because Russia claims it had to invade Ukraine to defend itself from NATO. But that is UTTER NONSENSE
NATO did NOT support Ukraine with ANYTHING EXCEPT A FEW DEFENSIVE MANPADS before the war started
Javelin anti-tank missiles
Stinger manpads to shoot down low flying helicopters and fighter jets
[just a few days before Russia invaded Ukraine]
These are only of use to DEFEND.
The Donbas separatists back in spring 2022 didn’t have tanks or helicopters or jets. In 2022 the front line in Donbas was stable with an attempt at a ceasefire broken frequently with low level shelling incidents. The NATO supplied manpads were utterly useless for this, and weren’t used.
See:
So no, Ukraine is not doing this to attack Russia and NATO is NOT supporting them to attack Russia.
I need to debunk this FALSE PROPAGANDA just to help scared people who believe it, and then think that Ukraine is trying to overthrow Russia and get scared of what Putin would do if Ukraine marches on Moscow, say, which they won’t do.
No. Ukraine’s only aim here is to protect it’s own borders. You can also see this from the way they conducted this incursion, spreading out along the borders.
So the main questions here that I need to answer for scared people are:
Why did Ukraine cross the border?
Why couldn’t Russia stop them?
What are Ukraine’s immediate aims?
What will Putin do?
What does Putin do after major setbacks?
What are Ukraine’s aims long term?
How does this help Ukraine to end the war faster? [Remember this is Ukraine’s only objective]
Once you understand all this you'll see why there is no risk to Ukraine or NATO, nothing Russia can or will do and no possibility of Russia attacking NATO.
I will go into this in detail. But first a summary
Short answers
Why did Ukraine cross the border?
Ukraine crossed the border to stop an attack that Russia was about to do in the other direction into Sumy
Why couldn’t Russia stop them?
Russia couldn’t stop them because of a very top-down command structure
Russian border guards and spies knew that Ukraine had large numbers of troops across the border in Ukraine and worried they might be aiming to attack not just defend weeks before August 6th
But the high-ups in Russia didn’t believe them and didn’t pass on their warnings to Putin
What are Ukraine’s immediate aims?
To stop an imminent attack by Russia across the border to Sumy (already accomplished)
To set up a buffer region along the border so that any border fighting happens in Russia rather than in Ukraine
To protect Ukraine from the Russian fighter jets that drop glide bombs by pushing them further way into Russia before they can launch their attacks
To cut off the very important railway line through Sudzha which supplies Russian attacking forces as far south as Belgorod oblast where they attack towards Kharkiv city
To destroy or capture Russian equipment and soldiers that they use to attack Ukraine from across the border
To capture Russian conscripts and soldiers to exchange for captured Ukrainian soldiers in Russian prisons
What will Putin do?
Nothing - Russian bureaucracy is very slow acting and it takes them ages to decide how to respond to anything that is surprising on the battlefield
a week later they are still arguing about whether it’s the spies the border guards, or the army that should take charge of the operation to defend Russia and try to push the Ukrainians back and they don’t yet have a command and control center to direct operations
What does Putin do after major setbacks?
He pauses and regroups
He gets more serious about negotiating for peace
We saw that after Putin’s biggest setback of the entire war when he lost the battle for Kyiv. What did he do? Use nukes? Attack Lithuania?
No, he got the closest he ever has to negotiating a peace treaty with Ukraine. To start with it seemed genuine but towards the end it became clear they were no longer genuine after Rusisa added a nonsense clause that Russia as the invading country has to approve any request by Ukraine for security assistance from other countries as we’ll see. But for a few days it looked like a genuine peace agreement.
What are Ukraine’s aims long term?
to hold onto some of this territory long term as a buffer region to protect Ukraine
[it will likely be EASIER not harder for Ukraine to defend a front line in Russia because Russia will have to fight back through Russian cities and villages and won’t want to flatten them to the ground like they do for Ukrainian cities and villages]to keep it for an exchange later - when eventually they do a treaty with Putin then they could trade this land for some of the occupied territory elsewhere
to force Russia to commit large numbers of soldiers and equipment to the front line here which will spread them out over nearly twice as long a front line as before
How does this help Ukraine to end the war faster? [Remember this is Ukraine’s only objective]
Ukraine CAN’T liberate occupied Ukraine by fighting back street by street like Russia does - it would take far too long, decades or centuries even
At some point Ukraine HAS to get through the Russian defences in occupied Ukraine and do it quickly before Russia can respond and get behind them
Behind the fortifications, Russia is likely very weak and undefended
In Kursk region Ukraine gets to practice what it will later need to do in occupied Ukraine behind the front line
Also by forcing Russia to commit large numbers of soldiers to Kursk it weakens the front line somewhere else and it can exploit those weaknesses for a sudden breakthrough
Ukraine excells at fast maneuver warfare and combined operations - with the air power it has (droens, Patriot air defences, its fighter jets and air defences) combined with fast moving armoured vehicles and the infantry all coordinated together, flexible, agile, and making command decisions on the spot in teh field.
Russia is not able to do this type of fighting. Russia’s strong point is very slow advances with shelling street by street through cities.
So Ukraine has to try to find opportunities to turn the slow advances into fast maneuver warfare. It can then win.
That then will force Russia to consider peace negotiations and can end this war faster.
WHY DID UKRAINE CROSS INTO RUSSIA - DEFENSIVE - TO SET UP A BUFFER REGION IN RUSSIA RATHER THAN IN UKRAINE
TEXT ON GRAPHIC: Why Ukraine crossed into Russia and why it is DEFENSIVE NOT ESCALATORY and NOT CROSSING RUSSIA’S ONLY REAL RED LINE - no threat to the Russian Federation
This operation could be used just to simplify Ukraine’s defense, leaving a buffer region for most of it within Russia
Until this attack on August 6th Russia didn’t need soldiers or to build strong fortifications here
Ukraine had to defend this long complicated border already
Ukraine can simplify ist border so can be SAFER with LESS SOLDIERS while Russia now has to defend and needs MORE soldiers here
[Kursk oblast] Was part of Ukraine for a few years before the Soviet era and many are on friendly terms with Ukraine, some speak Ukrainian and shouted “Slave Ukraine”
Example, Ukraine could retreat to this line and make is border far easier to defend
Buffer region NOW in Russia to defend Ukraine
Before this incursion Russia could cross anywhere at any time making a buffer region or “no man’s land” in Ukraine
Ukraine border arrowed in purple
Russian expensive but useless fortifications - didn’t stop Ukraine at all.
The incursion is over a very broad part of the Ukrainian border with Russia. It is a compact area that will be very hard for Russia to win back.
They have tried this fast maneuver warfare that Ukraine is so good at but they have never succeeded, they tried numerous pincer movements during the war but each time their very slow advance of 100 meters a day or so means the Ukrainians have plenty of time to get out of the pincer movement.
For instance, they tried that for Avdiivka, Lysichansk, and several other occasions. Each time they complete the pincer only to find that Ukraine left the night before.
But there is no possibility of a pincer movement here. The Ukrainians have a very broad front now, in control of the border with Russia over a very large part of the border.
Instead the Ukrainians are likely to dig in fortifications, and build mine fields and Russia will only be able to take the territory back at their usual slow pace of 100 meters a day, or less, often only a kilometer a month.
As of 17th August, 11 days into the operation, Russia has still not mounted any counteroffensive to liberate parts of the occupied area. Instead Ukraine is still advancing. It seems about to take an extra area of 700 square kilometers with a river as a natural barrier since it destroyed one of the bridges over it. This would nearly double its occupied area of Russia, and make the Ukrainian border here far easier to defend
.Graphic from: War Mapper (@War_Mapper) on X
Closer view of it
. Jimmy Rushton (@JimmySecUK) on X. See the complete thread for details. Since then, Russia has deployed a pontoon bridge but Ukraine can target that too of course. Vitaly (@M0nstas) on X
It is especially difficult for Russia to regain this territory once they have lost it, because the only way they have been able to make advances against Ukraine since early summer 2022 is by slow advances street by street through villages and cities destroying nearly all the homes as they go.
This is very clear even from space in satellite images
.
Text on graphic This is how Russia advances about a kilometer per week in Donbas and Southern Ukraine.
- it can't do this to reclaim Kursk oblast because it would be demolishing Russian homes.
Satellite image from: Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) on X
They can't do that in Russia, the Russians would be outraged if that is how they "liberated" Sudzha, say, by just demolishing everything in it.
If they do this, then when the Russian civilians do get back into their "liberated" villages they likely find all their homes demolished by Russian shells. Because that is the only way that Russia knows to liberate them.
Ukrainians are much more subtle.
They have taken Sudzha pretty much undamaged.
Sudzha after it was taken over by Ukraine as filmed by a Ukrainian soldier
and the first foreign broadcast from Sudzha showing the Russian flag taken down:
and as filmed by an Italian film crew
The main thing to notice is how the buildings are undamaged.
Ukraine also is focusing on looking after the civilians in the regions they occupied. They are used to doing that when liberating occupied Ukraine and they are doing the same in Kurszk oblast for the Russian civilians. After the soldiers capture the area they then switch to looking after the civilians and Ukraine sends a second wave whose main responsibility is to help stabilize the region and look after the civilians. Set up the infrastructure they need for food, medicine, humanitarian aid etc and generally helping them.
We are starting to get these videos, see for instance:
. Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) on X
We’ve been used to liberation videos. These aren’t, they are occupation videos but the civilians are treated well and allowed to come and go and their homes are left intact.
Russia has never managed to do that, not since early in the war.
Russia has never managed to do that, not since early in the war.
Russia tried several encirclements over the last two years for instance in Lysichansk and Avdiivka - but its army advances so slowly, 100 meters per day, that Ukraine easily escapes, leaving the night before the encirclement is complete.
The only way that Russia gets cities or villages undamaged is if Ukraine withdraws early in order to prevent destruction of the homes. It does that sometimes if they are not very strategically important.
But it wouldn't do that in Russia. Highly unlikely because it knows that Russia won't dare to flatten its own cities in the same way.
So, by past performance anyway, Russia can only regain these villages and cities by flattening them to the ground. Since that will be unacceptable to Russians in the area, then it may never be able to regain them. This is my own observation, not seen anyone else say it, but it is kind of obvious.
The only chance Russia has is a rapid response to drive Ukraine back before they can dig in and build fortifications but
Russia has never been good at this sort of agile combat
they are not moving their soldiers and equipment to the Kursk region fast enough to even stop the advance yet
Russian bureaucracy is very slow to respond to surprises
as of August 15, 9 days after the incursion, the Russian spies, border guards and military are still involved in a big argument with each other over who was to blame for the incursion and how exactly to organize command and control for their response.
The issue Russia has is that Ukraine has air superiority over the region. It is likely operating within range of a Patriot system which means that Russian planes can be shot down to a height of 25 km up to 160 km away from the system.
Then Ukraine have manpads to shoot down low flying fighter jets and helicopters and mobile air defence systems including probably Gepard tanks which can shoot down drones at low cost.
Then according to Russian sources, the Ukrainans have vast numbers of first person view quadcopter drones that are operating in frequencies that the Russian equipment can't block, a surprise capatiblity they unveiled for this offensive.
When the Russians try to bring up reinforcements in convoys along their roads, the Ukrainians see the convoys and destroy them. They have now destroyed several convoys. They may have hacked the roadside cameras at least some Russian sources are speculating that. Or it may be that they just geolocate photos and videos because the Ukrainian soldiers are very disciplined and don't upload anything during an ongoing operation but the Russian soldiers are not and often upload videos and photos and then are hit by Ukrainian air strikes.
Russia built expensive fortifications as you can see from the map - but they are useless unless manned by soldiers and there was nobody to defend them. Also they needed to protect them with mine fields - the ones in occupied Ukraine have vast mine fields far wider than is usual in war and that’s the main way that Russia protects itself. But the Ukrainians in Kursk region just drive through fields without needing to worry about mines there.
So, without mines and without soldiers to defend - they are just a big ditch in the ground with dragon’s teeth behind them. The Ukrainian tanks just drive in and out of the ditch and then remove a few of the dragon’s teeth and are through.
HOW UKRAINE CAN WIN THIS WAR - BY MORE SURPRISES LIKE THE ONE IN KURSK OBLAST
Those satellite images are perfect also for showing how Ukraine can win the war. Certainly not by flattening Ukrainian cities and villages - that is as unacceptable for Ukraine as flattening Russian homes is for Russia.
It has to use strategy, misdirection and surprise as it did for Kursk oblast and did previously in 2022 with the battle for Kyiv, Kharkiv oblast and Kherson city
.
Text on graphic: Satellite photographs
Areas of occupied Ukraine demolished by shelling as Russia advances about a kilometer per week demolishing everything as it goes
Ukraine can’t use Russian tactics to demolish occupied Ukraine slowly street by street to liberate it
it takes too long and is too destructive.
Instead it has to use misdirection, strategy and surprise to get through the front line much as for Kursk oblast by exploiting Russia’s vulnerabilities.
it’s already done this three times in 2022, with battle of Kyiv, Kharkiv oblast and Kherson city, and now in 2024 with Kursk oblast
Kurk oblast here
Breaks through Russian railway line supplies for here [border near Kharkiv city]
Vulnerable supply lines here [Luhanks area near the Ukrainian front line]
Ukraine through mine fields here [Verbove]
Vulnerable Azov sea coast road
Mines washed away here [Dnipro river]
Vulnerable Crimea land bridge
Vulnerable Kerch bridge.
Satellite image from: Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) on X
EXAMPLE OF WHAT PUTIN DID WHEN IT LOST THE BATTLE OF KYIV IN APRIL 2022 - REACHED FOR PEACE TREATY NEGOTIATIONS
In February 2022, Putin hoped to take Kyiv city in 3 days and to take the whole of Ukraine in 2 weeks.
This was a cunning plan he devised with the help of his spies. It was so top secret that even his generals didn’t know about it. As a result though for spies it seemed clever for generals it was very dumb.
His plan was to construct a rapid air bridge to Hostomol airport near Kyiv city, rush in paratroopers with tanks which would then drive into Kyiv and take over the government. Everything else was a distraction, and then would turn to mopping up the resistance. He expected the Ukrainian military en masse to switch to loyalty to Putin when they realized he’d taken over their government, and Zelensky would flee or be captured or killed.
He failed to establish the air bridge because of the surprising (for him) resistance of a small group of not very well trained officers who were able to shoot down a few helicopters as they tried to land and who parked cars on the air fields to make it impossible to use as a runway - and because of other soldiers who shot down low-flying planes with the newly supplied Stingers that Latvia and Lithuania gave to Ukraine at the very last minute.
Meanwhile the Russian generals had only prepared for exercises, not for an invasion. They didn’t have enough supplies of fuel for their tanks to reach Kyiv from the border which is why they kept running out of fuel.
But Ukraine didn’t fight back. It just let the tanks drive along the main road all the way to Kyiv. Let them refuel (apart from a few that were stolen mainly by Ukrainian farmers dragging them away with tractors). And then stopped them only at the border to Kyiv city and then blocked their supplies.
So Putin ended up with that very long column of tanks we saw on TV in spring 2022 just sitting there for weeks doing nothing. He had chosen the very worst time of year for a tank invasion as the ground there is so wet in spring that they just sink in up to their turrets if they drive off the main roads.
It was unsustainable. But it took Putin several weeks to realize it. By April 2nd 2022 finally Russia realized it could no longer keep the tanks supplied so deep into Ukraine and it decided to retreat.
Four days later by April 6th 2022, Russia had given up an area of occupied Ukraine with an area between Bulgaria and Greece, or in US states, between Pennsylvania and Mississippi.
This was Putin’s biggest setback by far. His hopes to take over Ukraine in 2 weeks completely dashed.
So what did he do? Attack NATO with nukes? Of course not, that would be plain silly.
He started on serious peace negotiations with Ukraine for the first time and so far last time in the war
.
Text on graphic: Area lost by Russia in battle of Kyiv in 7 days, 126,404 square kilometers = 48,805 square miles Between area of Pennsylvannia and Mississippi Between area of Bulgaria and Greece. Putin often backs down when he faces a superior and determined opponent. Ukraine may not need to fight for every inch. If it is clear that Ukraine will not stop - Putin might remove his army - and still convince Russians (and perhaps others) that he "won".
I did that map soon after Putin’s biggest setback in 2022.
I will talk about the treaty negotiations after Russia lost the battle of Kyiv further down the page.
THERE IS NO RISK OF RUSSIA USING NUKES HERE
Nobody I follow in the long military discussions that go on every day on Twitter amongst generals and historians of warfare and other experts even for a moment suggests Russia would use nukes. It makes no sense.
We can also see this from how our governments are responding. They clearly don’t see it as a realistic possibility of Russia using nukes against NATO countries, or the government would be telling us what to do if hit by nukes.
Most people don’t have a clue what fallout is, or how to protect against it. They don’t know that it is just heavy dust, heavy enough to fall from the stratosphere to ground level in minutes. They don’t know that you can see it, and that to protect against it you need to put as much distance and other materials like boxes, books, clothes etc between you and the very visible dust falling out of the sky.
Most people also don’t know that this fallout very rapidly gets far less dangerous. If the dust lands after 15 minutes it is ten times less radioactive at just under 2 hours, 100 times less radioactive at around 12 hours and 1000 times less radioactive a week later. You can safely leave your shelter to find somewhere better or to evacuate after two days.
If it was like the cold war the governments would tell us this. This knowledge alone would save millions of lives in a real nuclear war. But who knows that? Almost nobody. Because they know that we are at no real risk of a nuclear war.
But they don’t do this.
That alone shows they are not concerned in that way.
US PRESS SECRETARY FOR THE PENTAGON SAYS THEY SEE THE KURSK INCURSION AS DEFENSIVE NOT ESCALATORY
The US say they didn’t know about the incursion in advance - but that when they found out about it they saw it as defensive, not in any way escalatory.
Sabrina Singh, Pentagon press secretary, says
“We don't feel like this is escalatory in any way. Ukraine is doing what it needs to do to be successful on the battlefield.”
“So they are taking actions to protect themselves from attacks that are coming from a region that are within the US policy of where they can operate, you know, our weapons, our systems, our capabilities.”
In context:
QUOTE STARTS
Q: Yeah. Thanks. So, just on the Ukraine attacks into Russia, are you concerned that Russia will escalate tensions over this attack, including with the US, nuclear threats, anything like that?
SABRINA SINGH: No, because at the end of the day, Ukraine is fighting for its sovereign territory that its neighbor invaded. So, if we want to de-escalate tensions, as we've said from the beginning, the best way to do that is Putin can make that decision today to withdraw troops from Ukraine.
Ukraine is going to do everything it can to continue to take back its sovereign territory. And that's what we're seeing they're doing in this — what you're referring to in this, you know, Kursk Oblast. We're going to continue to support Ukraine with the capabilities and the systems that they need.
We don't feel like this is escalatory in any way. Ukraine is doing what it needs to do to be successful on the battlefield.
Q: Can you provide us an update on Ukraine's incursion into Kursk? Is that consistent with the United States's sort of understanding of what Ukraine can and cannot do with US weapons?
SABRINA SINGH: Thanks for the question. So yes, it is. It is consistent with our policy and we have supported Ukraine from the very beginning to defend themselves against attacks that are coming across the border and for the need for crossfires. So they are taking actions to protect themselves from attacks that are coming from a region that are within the US policy of where they can operate, you know, our weapons, our systems, our capabilities.
Q: So is the policy then essentially wherever they see an attack emanating from or grouping of troops, so could that include Moscow as well, if they saw some sort of preparation for them to then go into Moscow, is that that —
SABRINA SINGH: Again, we don't support long range attacks into Russia. These are more for crossfire. I'm not going to put a specific range on it. As you know —
Q: — Do they know what the limit is?
SABRINA SINGH: — They (Ukrainians) are aware of the US policy and what we are supportive of. I think you know from the very beginning we are supportive of Ukraine and their success on the battlefield. But as the dynamics have shifted on the battlefield, they've been able to actually push the Russians back further into Russian territory. But as they see attacks coming across the border, they have to be able to have the capabilities to respond. And so you're seeing some of these cross-border counter fire measures that they're being able to take that are near the border of Ukraine.
We don't support long range attacks into (Russia). We've said that from the very beginning. I'm not going to draw, you know, a circular map here for you of where they can and can't strike, but we've been very clear with the Ukrainians.
. Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh Holds a Press Conference
On her last comment, deep attacks so long as they are defensive DO NOT CROSS ANY RUSSIAN RED LINE EITHER.
The Russian red line, the real one, not the made up ones that Putin bluffs with, is about using nukes to DETER a threat to the Russian Federation. The whole point in the nukes is to make sure they are never used. Nukes couldn’t stop countries with NATO technology taking over Russia. They can only deter NATO from even trying. Which it doesn’t want to anyway.
So long as Ukraine’s objective is defensive and they are not, say, trying to assassinate Putin or overthrow the government, then there is no reason in the law of armed conduct or in Russian nuclear doctrine why Ukraine can’t target e.g. a factory that makes glide bombs or a base for fighter jets that fly every day to attack Ukraine no matter where it is in Russia.
But at present the US doesn’t permit Ukraine to use its long-range weapons in that way.
Ukraine frequently hits such targets even over 1000 km away very deep within Russia with its own home-built drones. And Russia does NOTHING. But so far the US hasn’t permitted Ukraine to use its own far more effective long distance missiles and cruise missiles against targets deep within Russia.
RUSSIA’S ONLY REAL RED LINE FOR USE OF NUKES IS IF A COUNTRY THREATENS THE FUTURE OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION - AND EVEN THEN RUSSIA WOULD STILL LOSE BIG TIME, NOT WIN, BY USING NUKES
These are not real red lines they are made up ones. The only real Russian red line is that Russia AS A DETERRENT says it will use nukes against any country that threatens the future of the Russian Federation. And NOT BECAUSE THAT WOULD HELP RUSSIA DEFEND ITSELF. It is to STOP another country from trying to overthrow the Russian Federation.
Ukraine has every right to defend itself from an invasion. It is now NEARLY A WEEK since Ukrainian soldiers first crossed the border into Russia on 6th August. They did this for DEFENSIVE REASONS.
And what is Russia doing? Nothing. It attacked one supermarket in Ukraine - not an unusual week for Russia. It is trying
to figure out who is in charge of defending Russia in Kursk oblast, the FSB (spies), Roseguardia (border guards) or the MoD (military).
Meanwhile Ukraine continues to advance every day. Ukraine is likely going to expand into the Belgorod oblasts in the near future.
This is for self defense. Ukraine is trying to get control of a buffer region between its border and the rest of Russia.
There is nothing Russia can do.
There is no way that Putin attacks NATO. Especially right now when it's just been soundly defeated in a border battle with Ukraine.
Like if a bully attacks a small kid at school and they fight back and though smaller than the bully, they fight better and are winning and getting more punches through than the bully - would the bully then go and swing a punch at a friend of that kid who is the school boxing champion?
Or it's like losing against a kid in a 100 meter race and deciding that this means you can defeat Usain Bolt.
It makes no sense at all. It could never help for Putin to attack NATO when he is losing against Ukraine.
And Putin doesn't do that.
When he is losing that's the only time that Putin considers genuine peace deals.
This is the only way that Ukraine has of achieving a real peace and to de-escalate. To fight back and show Russia that it's strong.
That is why Ukraine does it. That is why NATO countries support it to do it. Ukraine wants the war to end and to liberate the occupied regions.
E.g. Argentina attacked the Falkland islands, which belong to a nuclear weapon state the UK, it didn't use nukes back. China attacked the Soviet Union when it had nukes and China didn't, the Soviet Union didn't use nukes back.
. Sino-Soviet border conflict - Wikipedia
The Soviet Union occupied Afghanistan but was defeated and it didn't use nukes against Afghanistan.
Because you CAN'T USE NUKES TO WIN WARS.
Everyone agrees that a nuclear war can’t be won and should never be fought. See my
BLOG: How nuclear deterrents work - like a bodyguard - their job is to prevent fights (How nuclear deterrents work - like a bodyguard - their job is to prevent fights)
Not as an agreement. As something they all recognize as true.
All five security council members signed a statement saying that a nuclear war can never be won and must never be fought.
And that isn't a concession. It's not a promise or a treaty. It is just sense. This is something goes back to Reagen first to state it really clearly.
Affirmation that a nuclear war can never be won and must never be fought - by all five permanent members of the UN security council (Affirmation that a nuclear war can never be won and must never be fought - by all five permanent members of the UN security council)
Russia and China have repeated it since the Ukraine war. This is from Tass, Russian propaganda but it is a good source on what Russia itself has signed:
QUOTE STARTS
Russia and China are convinced that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be unleashed, according to the Joint Statement on Deepening the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership of Coordination for the New Era signed by Russian and Chinese Presidents, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, on Tuesday after their talks in Moscow.
"Stressing the importance of the joint statement by the leaders of the five countries, which possess nuclear weapons, on the prevention of a nuclear war and an arms race, the sides once again state that there can be no winners in a nuclear war and it must never be unleashed,"
. Russia, China convinced that nuclear war must never be unleashed — joint statement
I don't understand myself why people would even find it plausible that if Putin is losing against Ukraine that they would attack NATO.
It may be due to a misunderstanding of nukes thinking they are more powerful than they are.
Russia does NOT have any capability to win the Ukraine war with nukes.
The way that Ukraine is still rapidly advancing through Russia shows how undefended it is even against Ukraine never mind against the far far more powerful NATO and the very long NATO border which doesn't even have fortifications or many soldiers mainly just border guards.
Russia relies on nukes as a deterrent. If it uses them it loses its deterrent as it then becomes the objective of NATO to make sure it can't use any more, and NATO HAS to attack Russia to stop the attacks on NATO and is vastly superior and would win quickly.
A NATO country with NATO weapons and with an objective to stop Russia from attacking NATO would be in Moscow by now and would have got complete
control over the Russian air space within hours with its F-35s.
So if Russia uses a nuke against NATO it QUICKLY LOSES.
This is why Putin will NOT use a nuke against NATO no matter how ruthless he might be. Because he would immediately LOSE. He also couldn't hide it from his own people that he was the one who used the nuke.
So he will NOT use a nuke.
And BTW nobody reliable or sensible has ever suggested he would respond to the Kursk incursion with nukes amongst the experts I follow or the people discussing the posts in comment replies.
Suppose in an alternate history NATO gave Ukraine everything it has now in spring 2022. Then Ukraine would have won, no question about it. Russia was simply not prepared to fight against an army like the modern Ukrainian army in 2022.
Putin expected to take over Kyiv in 3 days and the whole of Ukraine in 2 weeks. Instead he lost the battle of Kyiv and within a week he lost nearly half the total area he'd occupied in the war so far.
So what does he do? Drop nukes on Ukraine? Attack NATO? That would just be silly, when you are losing you won't win by attacking NATO which is far stronger than Ukraine.
He retreated and tried to negotiate a peace treaty in his favour.
This is what Putin does. When he loses he sensibly retreats and de-escalates. When he wins he escalates. He is currently escalating to the max. But has lost big time in Kursk.
If he continues to lose we can expect him to try increasingly more genuine peace treaties until eventually he finds one that Ukraine can accept.
People who panic about Putin "escalating" when he loses are just not thinking logically.
I am not sure where it comes from. Obviously from click bait headlines. But why does ANYONE find it plausible that Putin would attack NATO if he loses in Ukraine?
I don't know, but possibly from movies and computer games with impossible fantasy story lines that advance the plot to thrill the audience?? It doesn't make sense in real life.
BLOG: Ukraine crossed into Russia to DEFEND itself
• easier to stop Russian attacks on the ground in Russia than with missiles fired from Ukraine
• also to block a railway supplying Russian attacks
SEE BLOG POST:
WHEN RUSSIA LOST THE BATTLE OF KYIV THAT WAS THE CLOSEST THE RUSSIAN NEGOTIATORS GOT TO PROPOSING A GENUINE PEACE TREATY
Remember the only time that Putin has offered what came close to a genuine peace deal is when Ukraine forced him to withdraw from Kyiv.
The Ukrainians eventually pulled out of it when the Russian negotiators added a nonsense clause to the treaty provision for security arrangements to protect Ukraine from a Russian invasion.
Russia added a clause saying that Russia has to approve any request by Ukraine for military aid to repel a Russian invasion. I.e. the invaded country could only ask for help to protect itself from the invader if the invader also approved the request.
That is when Ukraine realized it wasn't going to be possible to sign it.
But it was the only time that Russia has proposed anything that even came close to looking sensible.
Remember the only time that Putin has offered what came close to a genuine peace deal is when Ukraine forced him to withdraw from Kyiv.
The Ukrainians eventually pulled out of it when the Russian negotiators added a nonsense clause to the treaty provision for security arrangements to protect Ukraine from a Russian invasion.
Russia added a clause saying that Russia has to approve any request by Ukraine for military aid to repel a Russian invasion. I.e. the invaded country could only ask for help to protect itself from the invader if the invader also approved the request.
That is when Ukraine realized it wasn't going to be possible to sign it.
But it was the only time that Russia has proposed anything that even came close to looking sensible.
This is about that nonsense clause that finally ended negotiations in Istanbul in spring 2022:
QUOTE STARTS
To the Ukrainians’ dismay, there was a crucial departure from what Ukrainian negotiators said was discussed in Istanbul. Russia inserted a clause saying that all guarantor states, including Russia, had to approve the response if Ukraine were attacked. In effect, Moscow could invade Ukraine again and then veto any military intervention on Ukraine’s behalf — a seemingly absurd condition that Kyiv quickly identified as a dealbreaker.
“The Guarantor States and Ukraine agree that in the event of an armed attack on Ukraine, each of the Guarantor States … on the basis of a decision agreed upon by all Guarantor States, will provide … assistance to Ukraine, as a permanently neutral state under attack…”
With that change, a member of the Ukrainian negotiating team said, “we had no interest in continuing the talks.” . Ukraine-Russia Peace Is as Elusive as Ever. But in 2022 They Were Talking
But even then - that's the closest that Russia and Ukraine have got to a peace treaty - after Ukraine won against Russia and prevented Russia from taking Kyive and forced them out of nearly half the previously occupied area of Ukraine. So this is why Ukraine is fighting. Even if it doesn't get back all of Ukraine it can set up conditions for Russia to come to the table for a genuine peace treaty instead of a surrender request.
That is what will happen if Ukraine has big successes against Russia. Not Russia doing an impossible escalation which it can't do, Russia retreating from large areas of occupied Ukraine as it did in spring 2022 and then more in a mood to discuss a genuine peace treaty.
RUSSIA IS EXCEEDINGLY WEAK AND POOR AT COMMAND AND CONTROL
Russia is just very very weak. And the slow response is because of the top heavy command structure which we've seen throughout the war.
Generals require absolute obedience of officers who require absolute obedience of soldiers. They don't know any other way to do it. They also require the officers and soldiers below them in the command structure to give them good news and tend to ignore bad news. As a result, the soldiers may see something going on but can't take the initiative to respond, the generals at the top think everything is fine when it isn't, and so they are very slow to respond to things like this.
Ukrainian soldiers used to be like that before 2014 but they then started to learn the newer more agile NATO command structures where soldiers and officers have far more initiative and can make on the spot decisions if their instructions don't match what they see in the battlefield.
That's one of the main ways the Ukrainians are superior to Russia. It's especially striking for air power. The Russian pilots are not permitted to make their own decisions - and you have to train to develop that independence. They are told b their superiors where to go and what to hit. As a result even with 10 times as many fighter jets as the Ukrainians, the Russians have never achieved air superiority even in spring 2022 when Ukraine only had man-pads and hardly anything else by way of serious air defences. The Russian fighter jets are not able to travel over anywhere except occupied territory and Russian and low runs over Ukraine that are very risky. They typically drop the glide bombs from well outside Ukrainian controlled territories.
And now Ukraine has Patriot air defences, the Russian fighter jets have no chance of getting air dominance over the incursion.
A NATO country with similar superiority in the air would have taken over the Ukrainian air space long ago but Russia can't do it.
It takes years to change something like this. Ukraine has had a decade to make that transition.
And what makes it worse for Russia is that Putin himself requires absolute loyalty from his generals. He feels threatened by capable generals that may become popular with the soldiers and officers, and fires them. So he applies pressure on the miltiary to keep this old top down hierarchy as it keeps him in charge and removes a risk of a military challenge to his leadership in the Kremlin.
HOW THE UKRAINIANS SURPRISE THE RUSSIANS
The Ukrainians have surprised the Russians many times.
With the battle of Kyiv, the Ukrainians let the Russians advance without opposition nearly all the way to the borders of Kyiv. But they they resisted them at the border of the city - which led to that long line of tanks all along the road as it was the mud season and they couldn't leave the roads. They surprised the Russians just by not revealing their capabilities or intentions. Letting the tanks drive unopposed all the way until they got there and then cutting off the supplies to them.
The Russians before then tried to surprise the Ukrainians by doing a sudden air bridge to Hostomol airport and nearly succeeded but the Ukrainians had left a small number of not well trained soldiers there who surprised the Russians by being far more capable at defending the airport than expected.
Ukraine managed a complete surprise against Russian in 2022 with the September Kharkiv counteroffensive. They trained under trees as they still had leaves on and the locals never told on them. The spy satellites couldn't see them.
In 2023 the Ukrainians surprised the Russians with their naval drones and then with very long sea journeys in rubber dinghies for hundreds of kilometers from Ukraine to Crimea.
But by spring 2024, both sides had so many drones that the battlefield was almost totally transparent. Now soldiers are spotted by drones almost instantly.
It's now no longer possible to do the long reconnaissance with humans sneaking through the grass and rushes behind enemy front lines they used to do in 2023. Instead they use drones to do that. It is no longer possible even to hide under trees. The enemy quadcopter drones quickly spot you.
So how could there could be surprises today?
Many thought it would be impossible to repeat that Kharkiv oblast success today. Of course they could practice or assemble under trees as in 2022 to hide from spy satellites but now there are the drones swarming everywhere and it's next to impossible to avoid those anywhere near the front line.
But they can still use the Russian tradition of maskirovka or military deception. Wooden or other decoys. Concentrations of soldiers but their purpose is different from what was thought. For this particular attack the Ukrainians apparently had developed a way of avoiding the Russian electronic jamming of drones and in a very disciplined way didn't use it until the offensive. They used a frequency that was very hard for the Russians to jam with their cheap Chinese electronic parts to communicate with their drones and according to the Russian soldiers speculating on how they did it, that's a big part of their success. They were even able to use a small first person view quadcopter to down a Russian helicopter early in the offensive.
Then it's also the inflexibility of the Russian command system. The officers said they knew something was brewing weeks before it happened and tried to alert their higher ups but the generals ignored the warnings.
Then even after it started, the Ukrainians had very impressive op sec. They were hard for the Russians to track because of the electronic jamming and the Ukrainians didn't upload any videos of where they were. Meanwhile the Russians did and the Ukrainians quickly geolocated those videos and used them to destroy the Russians. There's a claim they also hacked the street cameras along highways though this is all Russian speculation as so far the Ukrainians have said very little about even what they did never mind how or where.
Spy satellites are not much use when soldiers are sneaking under trees in summer. The drones were out of order because of the electronic warfare. The Ukrainians did a combined arms offensive - they had tanks, soldiers in armoured vehicles, they had air defences with them shooting down the helicopters and figher jets - Russia lost several of both. They had vast numbers of drones with them, stockpiled and operating on frequencies the Russians couldn't jam. And moved very fast.
Meanwhile the Russian top down system is very unwieldy. One group of Chechen fighters was not very far from where the Ukrainians crossed over the border, but they weren't given any orders to engage so they just let them go by.
TWEET Chechen units defending the Russian-Ukrainian border in the Kursk region were unable to prevent the advance of the AFU as the Ukrainian military passed by the strongpoints of the Kadyrovites, said Apti Alaudinov, commander of the Akhmat special forces unit.
. Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) on X
Generals in the Russian army value absolute obedience and don't reward innovative independent thinking by officers below them.
Then Putin's propaganda machine was telling everyone that nothing was happening. So the local people didn't know to evacuate their cities. And the generals at the top heard nothing from the front lines and they heard nothing from the news. They seem to have had little awareness of what was going on for several days. They only started to respond in earnest a couple of days ago around the 9th August I think when Ukraine destroyed a group of Russians with HiMARS. The offensive started on the 6th. But Russia claimed it was under control.
. August 2024 Kursk Oblast incursion - Wikipedia
Here is how general Mick Ryan put it
QUOTE STARTS
Maybe we can finally dispense with the ‘transparent battlefield’ fallacy. War’s enduring feature, as Clausewitz described, is that it is a human endeavour and that it is full of uncertainty, friction, emotion and surprise. 1/5 🧵
2/ The level of strategic, operational and tactical deception shown by the Ukrainians during the planning, assembling forces and ongoing execution of the #Kursk operation has been superb.
3/ This is not a technical achievement - it is a human one. People who have learned from their successes and failures since February 2022 have crafted an operational design that is being competently executed by motivated soldiers.
4/ The design is physical of course. But it also has a profound moral dimension - the operation has shocked the Russian military and citizenry. The Ukrainians are exploiting this shock to move quickly through Kursk. This shock will unveil other opportunities for Ukraine to strike.
5/ But the strategic shock will also need to be exploited. It will have an impact on the status of Putin at home and abroad (can’t defend his own country). And, I hope, this will reinvigorate Western publics & politicians to force a change in our strategy to one that embraces and resources defeating Russia In Ukraine. End.
And here is a paper about it:
QUOTE STARTS
There are at least two ways of achieving surprise in the current conditions of the war in Ukraine. The first flows from impossibility of discerning the enemy’s intent confidently simply by observing the dispositions of his forces.
Troops massing behind an initial defensive line can be intended to establish subsequent defensive positions or to launch a significant counter-offensive. An attacker can initiate offensive operations in multiple areas in order to obscure the one on which he intends to make his decisive effort. A commander can mass forces in different sectors to confuse the defender about where the attack will come.
No amount of visibility of forces on the battlefield in itself will automatically reveal the intent of the opponent, so this central element of the fog of war will remain.
Technological advances can provide a second means of achieving surprise in a war that is seeing such a rapid technological innovation cycle. The EW-UAS competition in this war has caused the advantage to shift from one side to the other in a matter of weeks. Minor adjustments to the frequencies on which UAS communicate or the ways in which EW systems can jam them can make drones that had been able to operate freely suddenly ineffective in a given area or for a given mission set — or can allow UAS to begin operating in the face of EW systems that had previously been able to disable them. It is possible to make such a technological change and deploy the modified systems but withhold their use until forces are ready to take advantage of the new, gained, or regained capabilities, thereby achieving surprise by presenting the enemy with a dilemma for which he is unprepared. Both sides have used this approach with varying degrees of effectiveness.
The Russian re-invasion of northern Kharkiv Oblast in May 2024 was another effort to achieve surprise by attacking in an area the Ukrainians were not well-prepared to defend and where the Russians benefitted from the sanctuary created by the policies of Ukraine’s Western supporters barring Ukraine from using Western-provided weapons against targets in Russia itself. The Ukrainians were aware of the buildup of Russian forces in the area and so were not strategically or operationally surprised, but the Russians launched the attack before their own forces were fully prepared and thereby achieved a limited degree of tactical surprise. The Russians were not ready to exploit that tactical surprise, however, and so the Ukrainians were able to respond effectively and rapidly.
Surprise is an inherently temporary condition. It is meaningful only if one is able to take advantage of it in time and space to achieve significant advantages. But it is still very possible to generate even on the transparent battlefield of Ukraine.
So yes surprise is still possible as Ukraine showed. But they have to be VERY INGENIOUS!
So that is partly why it's an important breakthrough for Ukraine. There is no way they can liberate occupied Ukraine except through deception and surprise. Many were resigned to the idea that this means that the battle is stalemated. That it is impossible for Ukraine to win.
But this shows that surprise is still possible, surprise even with swarming quadcopter drones all along the front line adding to the information they already had from spy satellites and observational drone aircraft.
Which will lead to Russia wondering what Ukraine will do next and where, and for sure Ukraine won't have revealed all the cards in their hand for this operation as it isn't by any means their most important operation.
They will be keeping the aces in their hand for the counteroffensives in occupied Ukraine.
WHAT UKRAINE IS DOING RIGHT NOW - EXPANDING CONTROL OF THE RUSSIAN SIDE OF THE BORDER
As we saw, Russian bureaucracy is exceedingly slow. Now, 9 days later, Russia is still trying to set up a command and control center in Kursk oblast to organize their response. They have spent most of the last week in blame games trying to figure out whose mistake it was, the spies, or the border guards or the military - and then discovering that they are all to blame so nobody there is competent to mount a response - and trying to cobble together some way of fighting back. They are only just beginning to move more experienced soldiers to the area from Donbas and as far away as Crimea but they still don't know who will lead their response.
Meanwhile Ukraine continues to advance. But it is mainly focusing on expanding along the border - it is now advancing into Belgorod oblast and in the other direction it is approaching Bryansk oblast and it is doing many missile strikes on targets such as air fields in Voronezh oblast which it could also reach from Kursk or Belgorod oblasts possibly later in the incursion.
That is another asset for Ukraine - now it is in Kursk oblast on the ground - it can send saboteur teams on long journeys in rapidly moving scout vehicles to blow up military assets such as radars, air defences, air fields etc tens of kilometers or more away from their front line as well as fire its shorter range missiles at those targets too
.
TEXT ON GRAPHIC
Ukraine's incursions are DEFENSIVE - it's trying to establish a border buffer zone in Russia.
- it will be easier to defend than the Russian border because Russia will be very reluctant to flatten Russian homes with its bombs to retake it.
Ukraine is NOT TRYING TO ADVANCE TO MOSCOW
Defensive. No risk to the Russian Federation.
Incursion here [points to Kursk oblast]
All four oblasts are used by Russia to support its invasion of Ukraine.
Map from:
If Ukraine can maintain and hold those regions in Russia - then it will likely be easier to defend than Ukraine’s international border with Russia and seriously mess up logistics for Russia as it tries to supply its troops in occupied Ukraine.
Also until Russia can set up a continuous barrier with fortifications and mine fields, the Ukrainians will be able to do sorties with fast moving armoured vehicles tens of kilometers beyond the points they have already reached causing many more problems for Russia’s responses, and fire missiles at other targets like air fields from close by.
You can see that depending how far Russia lets Ukraine expand before it mounts an effective response, this could cause very major problems for its support of its soldiers in occupied Ukraine and its bombing runs on the Ukrainian targets.
As of 15th August the ISW says that Russia is still trying to get together an effective defence operation and will struggle to stop the Ukrainians in the near future. I will summarize the main points in one of the paragraphs in their report here: Institute for the Study of War
The main points are
The command and control structure for the Russian response is complicated, overlapping and so far ineffective [at day 9 of the incursion]
Russia has just established its first coordination control council on August 15 to try to coordinate everything, both the military response and civilian evacuations [which have been very confused so far]
QUOTE STARTS
The Kremlin and the Russian military command are creating a complicated, overlapping, and so far, ineffective command and control (C2) structure for the Russian response to the Ukrainian incursion in Kursk Oblast.
Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov announced on August 15 the creation of a "coordination council" within the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) for military and security issues in Belgorod, Bryansk, and Kursk oblasts.] Belousov stated that the coordination council aims to improve support for Russian forces covering the state border and will specifically
oversee the effective provision of materiel and equipment to forces in the area,
coordination between forces responding to threats along the state border,
engineering development in the area,
and military medical support.
Belousov added that the coordination council will assist civilian authorities with evacuations and take additional measures to protect civilians and infrastructure in Belgorod, Bryansk, and Kursk oblasts. Belousov did not comment on how the coordination council will interact with the existing C2 structure that the Kremlin established when it tasked the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) with conducting a counterterrorism operation in Belgorod, Bryansk, and Kursk oblasts on August 9. . Institute for the Study of War [bold text and bullet points added]
This coordination council will have to work with the FSB [Russian spies[ counterrorism operation which is also charged with countering the invasion
This will likely lead to friction between the spies and the military
QUOTE The MoD's coordination council and the FSB's counterterrorism operation will likely generate continued confusion about what structures are responsible for what aspects of the Russian defensive operation in Kursk Oblast and will likely lead to friction between the FSB and the Russian military.. Institute for the Study of War
Putin has given the same tasks to three different agencies, the Ministry of Defence, the FSB (spies) and the Rosgvardia (border guards).
These three entities have not yet decided between themselves how to divide up their responsibilities
Russia has sent up to 11 battalions to respond to the incursion - these won’t be used to working with each other or with the leaders of the spies, border guards and military in Kursk oblast and will likely struggle to coordinate their operations in this very confusing command and control environment Putin has set up in Kursk oblast
QUOTE STARTS
Russian President Vladimir Putin has provided overlapping tasks to the Russian MoD, FSB, and Rosgvardia in Kursk Oblast, and these entities have not yet taken visible steps to establish a clearer division of responsibilities
Russian forces have reportedly redeployed up to 11 battalions from areas of Kursk Oblast and elsewhere in the theater to respond to the Ukrainian incursion, and this hastily assembled force grouping will likely struggle to coordinate combat operations given the Kremlin's confused approach to C2 so far.. Institute for the Study of War
From this you can see the Russian confusion and bureaucratic inefficiency seems likely to continue for a considerable period of time in the future and Ukraine is sure to continue to exploit it to make more advances.
SEE ALSO
This may help anyone scared of Putin attacking NATO:
[by lose quickly, Admiral Radakin means pushed right out of NATO territory, and any missile systems firing at NATO destroyed - NATO wouldn't try to defeat Russia as it is purely defensive]
And this is my previous blog post about how we are very safe from Russia:
TEXT ON GRAPHIC
US says this incursion is DEFENSIVE AND NOT ESCALATORY.
Meanwhile, Putin is downplaying it, it's too embarrassing for him to admit to the full extent of what's happening.
Also, when Russia has a big set-back it de-escalates. When it senses that Ukraine is weak it escalates. It is the opposite of what Putin bluffs. The only time Putin has ever offered anything close to a genuine peace plan is when Russia had its biggest set-back of the war when it lost the battle for Kyiv.
[arrow to railway line] By cutting through this railway line Ukraine stops Russia from supplying large numbers of soldiers that were preparing to cross into Ukraine and attack it.
Ukrainian colonel Vladislav Seleznyov told Nexta that
- Ukraine saw 75,000 Russian troops gathering close to the border
- They were about to attack Ukraine across the border
- Ukraine went on the offensive into Russia to eliminate the bridgeheads that threatened Ukraine.
Map from Wikipedia: August 2024 Kursk Oblast incursion.svg - Wikimedia Commons
For more on this:
MORE HISTORY - SUDZHA WAS PART OF THE SHORT-LIVED UKRAINIAN STATE BETWEEN THE BREAKUP OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION IN 1917 AND ITS TAKEOVER BY THE SOVIET UNION IN NOVEMBER 1918
More history, Sudzha was ethnically Ukrainian under the Russian empire. It was briefly part of the Ukrainian state from 1917 to 1918 during the intermediate period between the breakup of the Russian empire in 1917 and the formation of the Soviet Union, during World War I
QUOTE STARTS
Cossack lands of Kurshchyna
Suja and its surroundings and many other lands to the north of Sumy and Kharkiv are marked as Ukrainian ethnic territories on the map of South Russian dialects and dialects compiled in 1871 by Pavel Chubynsky, an outstanding ethnographer and folklorist, author of the Ukrainian national anthem.
As part of the Ukrainian Stat
e
It is no coincidence that in 1917, the residents of Suzhi and Suzhansky District swore allegiance to the Ukrainian authorities, announced their withdrawal from the Kursk Governorate and asked to be accepted into the Ukrainian People's Republic.
On August 14, 1918, a large part of the Kursk province of the former Russian Empire became part of the Ukrainian State. In particular, Putivlskyi and Rylskyi counties were included in Chernihiv Oblast, and Suzhanskyi, Graivoronskyi, Bilhorodskyi, Korochanskyi and Novooskolskyi — in Kharkiv Oblast.
This resolution became one of the results of the Kyiv Peace Conference — negotiations on the legal results of the First Soviet-Ukrainian War lost by the Bolsheviks.
Suja and Rylsk became victims of Russian annexation more than 100 years ago
But the Russians always break all agreements. When the Bolsheviks launched their next offensive against Ukraine on November 28, 1918, it was in Kursk that they proclaimed a puppet "Provisional Workers' and Peasants' Government of Ukraine" - something like the "LDNR" we know.
Already on November 29, Soviet Russia occupied the border Ukrainian district center — the town of Suja, where through the mouth of its puppet government it announced the overthrow of the Hetman's power, the restoration of Soviet power and called for a struggle against the Directory. In addition, she announced the cancellation of all laws, orders and treaties of the Hetman and his government, as well as the Central Rada, including the resolution of August 14, 1918.
. Сім цікавих фактів про Курськ і Курщину
I’m not sure which of those districts correspond to which of the modern Kursk oblast districts because the names aren’t quite the same, but it seems to include at least this region:
Highlights:
Sudzhansky District
Korenevsky District
Glushkovsky District
Rylsky District
Map from Bing Maps (you will need to search for the districts to highlight them)
though with all except the Sudzha district only part of the Ukrainian state from August to November 1918.
But with this history, it’s not too surprising that some residents of Sudzha oblast speak Ukrainian and say they would like to be part of Ukraine
. Cuntasorus Flex🇺🇦🇺🇸 #muga NAFO (@warrior_na92602) on X
Dubbed in English (translated from Russian)
Also here:
See also Wikipedia article:
. Ukrainian People's Republic - Wikipedia
Further back the origins of what became the Ukrainian dialect developed amonst those who lived in the Dnieper river basin which continues up to Kursk
QUOTE STARTS
Transportation by sea even in the present is cheaper than transportation by land. In the past, it was even more economically competitive, and unlike land transportation, required little capital investment. Thus trade and military power grew out of rivers. Religion, language, and much else spread by them too.
Hydrology shaped the history of the East Slavs greatly after the fragmentation of the Rus'. The Rus’ of the north - in Novgorod and Pskov - developed their own dialect as the Middle Ages proceeded, their lives being entwined with the Neva and the Baltic rather than the Dnieper. Similar processes drove the development of dialects in other parts of the Rus’ realm. In the swamps of modern Belarus, the isolated populations slowly developed what would become modern Belarusian. Similarly, in Galicia, the people who traded with the Poles and the Hungarians developed the earliest version of what would become Ukrainian.
The same map with the outline of Ukraine superimposed:
QUOTE STARTS [changed position of the map
]
Among European states, Ukraine has some of the most limited water resources; local river flow accounts for just 25-30% of the total. This means that 70% of the country’s water comes from its neighbors. The irony here is that the majority of water resources that Ukraine uses comes from aggressor countries Russia and Belarus (through the Dnieper and Siversky Donets Rivers). Water also comes from Romania and 15 other European nations via the Danube, from Moldova via the Dniester, and other small waterways from other European nations.
Since location is fixed, in 1991 newly independent Ukraine had no option but to cooperate with Russia on the question of river basin management. After the Russia-Ukraine “Agreement on the Joint Use and Protection of Transboundary Water Bodies” was signed in 1992, the two nations succeeded in jointly preventing flooding in the Don River basin in Russia as well as preventing downstream water pollution in the Siversky Donets River following an accident at a sewage treatment plant in Kharkiv.
Although cooperation has stalled since 2014, it is clear that Ukraine is not only dependent on its northeastern neighbor in water terms, but that Russia depends on Ukraine as well. The Siversky Donets River, currently a line in the war’s front, is the largest tributary to Russia’s Don River and flows entirely within Ukraine, although some of its headwaters are on Russian territory. During the war, Russia has openly published its plans for managing the Siversky Donets in the context of integrating the self-proclaimed republics of Donbas with Russia.
. War-torn river basins? – Ukraine War Environmental Consequences Work Group
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