Ukraine has allocated its best units to a long-term resistance on Russian soil. international

Artillery fire, aviation flights and armored movements in Sumy are so intense that it is surprising in comparison to Ukraine’s weak position in the hottest spots of Donbass. Sumy province is the bulwark of a three-month-old operation that has allowed Kiev forces to capture part of the Russian region of Kursk. Soldiers interviewed in the area in late October assured that if they needed anything, it was more weapons. The number of troops they have is clearly superior to that of their brigade retreating south of Donetsk.

No one complains about personnel shortages in Kursk: rotation in the State Border Guard platoon commanded by Vadim occurs every 10 days. At first it was three days, says the military veteran, who does not want to reveal his last name. But in places like Kurakhov, besieged by Russia in the Donbass, the average time infantry are on the front lines is 25 days, according to four brigades consulted by this newspaper this October.

The invasion of Kursk province is President Volodymyr Zelensky’s personal bet, and not only his but the country’s political fate depends on the success of the operation. Demonstrating to Russia that it is insecure and that its territory is also threatened is one of the five points of the Victory Plan, a document that Zelensky drafted to improve the Ukrainian position in the war and to reach future peace negotiations. Presented to our international colleagues. With more strength.

The obstacles to Zelensky’s objectives are enormous, even greater following Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential elections. The Republican candidate has stressed during the election campaign that his priority is to ease Kiev’s freeze on US military aid and to seal a deal between Zelensky and Vladimir Putin as soon as possible, even if it means Russia The price of handing over the territory had to be paid. It is also said that the attacking forces are preparing a new offensive in Zaporizhia, on Ukraine’s southern front.

North Korean presence

Russia has regained a third of the land lost in the province, but this is modest progress compared to current progress in Donetsk. The gray zone at Kursk, over which neither side dominates, is particularly wide and the Ukrainian side continues to take the offensive initiative. The Institute for the Study of War, a US center that analyzes the conflict, said on Friday that Ukrainian forces had advanced on the village of Novoivanovka in the past few hours. This is also demonstrated by several videos released by their military units in which tanks and infantry fighting vehicles attack Russian positions on the front line. These actions on the war fronts inside Ukraine are unimaginable.

Ukrainian General Staff calculations indicate that Russia has deployed 45,000 troops in a counteroffensive to gain control of Kursk. Consulted military personnel estimate that half are recent recruits, i.e. without combat experience and easy to dismiss. “I have always told this to my colleagues, and they did not believe me,” Zelensky wrote in a statement on October 31. “Russia uses its entire military exclusively against Ukraine, on the territory of Ukraine. Russia is not safe from anything. Its weak forces remain on Russian territory; They are units that are unprepared, not combat units and not capable of defending their state. Our first operation in the Kursk area has proved this.

The Kremlin does not want to break into Donetsk and has opted for an alliance with North Korea to strengthen the defense of Kursk without weakening its position in other theaters of war. NATO, the United States, South Korea and Ukraine have said about 11,000 North Korean troops will take part in the fighting at Kursk. Zelensky assured on 5 November that the first battles with Pyongyang forces had already been recorded. Various military analysts have explained in detail forbes And the new York Times North Korean soldiers are fighting alongside the Russian 810th Naval Infantry Brigade in leading the offensive to liberate Kursk.

For the Ukrainian president, the North Korean alliance is proof that Russia also lacks the people and weapons to fight this crippling war. “The objective is to continue to advance, as long as it is possible, because the front is undulating and if we can break through, we can hold out in the long term,” says Sergeant Yaroslav of the 225th Separate Assault Battalion. The mission at Kursk, Yaroslav reiterated, is “to demonstrate that Russia is weak and cannot defend its territory.” US military sources explained to the Bloomberg agency on October 9 that the combat capability allocated to Kursk by the Ukrainian Armed Forces will allow it to remain there for “a few more months, even longer”.

Mechanized and armored regiments like the 1st Brigade had their best tanks—the German Leopard—opening fire within a few hundred meters of the enemy. The 47th Mechanized Brigade, made up entirely of NATO weapons and training, also shared videos of its American Abrams tanks and Bradley infantry armor directly attacking Russian positions. In contrast, in another sector of the front where the 1st Brigade operated, in Zaporizhia, its tanks performed only quick defensive maneuvers, being used as artillery cannonades away from the enemy.

Yevgeny is the commander of an assault company. He participates in EL PAÍS while he and his team prepare two Oncilla machine guns, a Polish-Ukrainian-made vehicle for attacking and transporting infantry. Yevgeny explains that the raid on Kursk was a surprise and that the Russian forces had neither extensively mined nor fortified the area as they did in the occupied territories in Ukraine, so the operation with their Onsila was easier. are: “Here we can attack the Russians by firing with two tanks and then defend by taking action ourselves.”

Yevgeny explains that one problem for his men is that some of the ammunition they have is defective. One shot out of ten jams the machine gun and forces his team to retreat. Another drawback, he says, is that they have only six Oncillas – each carrying a dozen people – for a battalion of 340 troops conducting offensive operations. Zelensky assured on October 30 that Ukraine has received only 10% of US military aid, worth more than 57 billion euros, which was approved by the US Congress last April.

air and communications sector

According to consultations with the Ukrainian military, Russian forces have two significant advantages. On one hand it has superiority in the air. There are continuous explosions of guided bombs fired by Russian bombers in Sumy and Kursk. “The Russians are focusing their air strikes against our logistics network. In August, to reach the places where we are fighting, we had to travel 15 kilometres, then it was 30 kilometers and now it is 45 kilometres,” says Technik, code name of a soldier of the 95th Airborne Brigade.

The second advantage of the Russians is telecommunications. Soldiers confirmed in interviews that they cannot use their mobile phones because there is no coverage and they mainly communicate walkie talkieAnother serious blow for Ukraine is that its troops cannot use connections on Russian soil to Starlink satellites, which are not active in delivering signals to Russian territory. Despite this, Oleg Apostol, commander of the 95th Brigade, and Pavlo Roslach, commander of the 80th Airborne Brigade, have assured in interviews for the media this October new narnia Who have found alternatives. Apostol, without explaining how, said he had a way to use Starlink; Roslach admitted that they cannot use it, but they are using other useful systems.

The 95th and 80th Brigades are two of the best regiments of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. These are the examples that Ukrainian General Dmytro Marchenko criticized in an interview on a YouTube channel on October 27: “Maybe our leaders have some brilliant secret plan, otherwise I don’t understand why our best brigade went to Kursk. Why are they in Ukraine, while Ukraine is collapsing “in our defense?” Marchenko is not the only voice that considers the operation on Russian soil a mistake while the offensive is making advances in Donetsk province every day. political It was reported in September that former army commander Valery Zaluzny was also opposed to the raid on Kursk. Bogdan Krotevich, the top commander of the Azov Brigade, has criticized in the same sense.