Russia-Ukraine War

The Geese have sided with the UAF in Kursk.

I suppose it might be down to trust and loyalty, or competence. As is typical in Russia, senior people like Gerasimov are appointed more for their loyalty to Putin rather than for any special competence. In fact too much competence can make you a threat and prevent you getting promoted. Either Putin is becoming frustrated at a loyal Gerasimov's incompetence, or Putin is losing confidence in Gerasimv's loyalty. Or both, or neither, who knows what might be going on in Putin's paranoid mind.

Not a bad weeks work

Wonder what price Ukraine is paying for this move because it can't last and Putin will do whatever it takes to get Ukraine out .Should Ukraine do a tactical withdraw and target somewhere else ,I don't know but it looks a suicide mission if they think they can keep making ground inside Russia .Hopefully Ukraine can just keep Russia guessing and taking out a lot of the military boththe army and equipment.

What part of it so far looks like a "suicide mission"? Sure, we've seen videos of the UAF in vehicles being targetted with FPV drones … but usually followed up by them leaping out of the targetted vehicle and taking cover in the surrounding countryside. And then they go on to capture disenchanted Russians by the 10s and 100s.

Similarly, we have hours and hours and hours of video footage of dead Russians lying all over the Donbas and other Ukrainian killing fields, but almost nothing showing dead Ukrainians. Sure, that could be a propaganda bias, but chances are it's more to do with the Ukrainians being better soldiers … and better humans.

So as long as they don't over-extend themselves, there's no reason to think that Ukraine can't hold on to these captured areas for months if not years, with little additional cost in terms of lives or money compared to facing the Russians head-on in Vovchansk.

Are there any reliable reports on damage to civilian infrastructure and civilian casualties in Kursk? It's impossible to imagine there won't be significant cases of both though though very hard to know where reliable info would come from

If you think about it though, all the Ukrainians need to do is sow chaos and confusion. I don't imagine the long term plan is to annex a slice of Russian land, instead, what we have here is a huge swathe of Russian land that is rapidly getting depopulated by it's inhabitants, either by evacuation or capture of POWs and by the looks of it, the idea is the spread that chaos rather than a targeted attempt to get to the heart of Russia. That would be too easy to counter, but this is destroying logistical routes, altering the prior understood borders of the conflict and surely it's absolutely crippling morale in the Russia areas close to this? Sure if you're on the other side of the country you won't care, but I don't think the average Ivan in Russia is thinking "Oh they invaded us? Now I want to fight back!" as anyone with that spirit likely enlisted already. The ones remaining are far more likely to be thinking "Oh they invaded us? Oh crap, we are in trouble now for kicking a hornets nest"

It's one way that it could go for ordinary Russians to get a taste of this war firsthand and perhaps put pressure on their government to end it…

But, if anything, I'd say it's considerably more likely that Putin would use this event as a rallying cry for full mobilisation. From a Russian propagandistic perspective, what could be more rousing than hordes of Ukrainian Nazis looking to destroy the motherland directly?

Though this obviously depends on how much of the Russian population remains who can be mobilised.

Hopefully something happens to these on route to Russia.

Did Iran already forget they promised to attack Israel

Anyways

Russia is such a huge land mass that sowing the fear we would like is not likely in the main cities my concern about this move is can Ukraine cause as much damage as possible but be able to get out without losing their soldiers who must be the more elite ones on this mission .Have Ukraine enough resources to keep fighting on the move hopefully so .

Russians claim an advance of 6KM yesterday

So many questions

This is the key task and question and still too early to tell. If they hold territory or inflict massive damage and escape it'll be seen as masterstroke.

On the other hand, if hundreds or thousands of elite soldiers get captured or killed it'll be seen as a big mistake and huge blow to morale.

Hopefully it'll be scenario 1, but who knows

Anybody got a link to a list of potential Russian military and strategic targets within missile range of Kursk?

They're not fukin about, I'd expect UA to absolutely cripple Russian logistics while they're there.

Tbf about 20% of the population are religious extremists which the government need their support to exist. But the majority don't seem to fond of the brutal islamic dictatorship.