Russia-Ukraine War

A narrow corridor would be going straight out from a narrow point on the Ukrainian border and being surrounded on both sides.

That is not what they have done. They have extended the border relatively equally along the front.

The bigger danger from Putin is showing weakness of any description! To let Putin even think that he can control the narrative in any way is to trigger an attack. Failure to respond to Putins aggression in the vain hope that he will not retaliate is a fool's notion. Hit him hard, and keep hitting him, even harder if possible. Destroy his means of attacking Ukraine is the only real way to stop Putin.

It is indeed disgusting, we can only hope Ukraine's air defences are getting better and better and they do seem to be doing some serious damage to Russia's own equipment and capabilities particularly these past few weeks

delete

Nothing compared to what Ukraine will lose if Putin thinks he's winning. He has proved over and over again that any form of weakness triggers the attack mode in him. Putin will continue to carry out murderous attacks in any way,,, its what he does. But if Russians see that he is unable to defend and protect them, never mind they come to the opinion that its Putin himself is the cause of all their problems, then his days are numbered.

Its like waiting for Betelgeuse to go supernova 😋

In terms of Russian troop movement, you'd have to presume that the Kursk operation was intended precisely to draw this response. That it is in fact what the Ukrainians have been waiting for. And that they have detailed plans as to how to respond in turn… it would all have been strategized out before they went over the border into Kursk - what lines they're going to try and reach, where they're going to hold, what kind of resistance they're going to face, what kind of troops and equipment are likely to be sent in by Russian to counter them, from where, on what routes, in what numbers and where they're likely to set up.

You'd hope that the Ukrainian's are just biding their time to do the real damage now.

"Heaps pressure on Putin to respond"

How much more heaping does he need. The big tough strong man has just had his country invaded, his people living in displacement camps and drones taking out his infrastructure.

Why has he not taken the gloves off his supposedly overwhelming military who can "take it back whenever they want"

Nukes, chemical weapons in Europe, conscripting western Russians. He won't dare do any of those things and if he was willing he would have done it during one of the many many many red line crossings.

suwalki "gap" is 100km wide

The point that territory in Kursk is worth less than territory in the Donbas to Ukraine isn't factually incorrect, it's just missing the wider picture imo.

The incursion has been a major PR victory for Ukraine. That's easy to dismiss the value of to many of us who think of PR as something involving vacuous bints who drink too much prosecco. In reality, Ukraine is still in this war because it's lead by Volodymyr Zelenskyy who is an absolute master of PR: from his initial video pleading with Russia not to invade and the infamous "I need ammunition, not a ride" quote he's managed to keep Ukraine in the spotlight for 3 years (amidst the Middle East falling to pieces again) and as a result has a coalition of partners in the leaders of wealthy western nations who are funding and arming his country.

This foray is also making Putin look weak to Russian citizens and the Oligarchs / Siloviki around him. Might it be enough to tempt them into sharpening their knives and taking him out? Time will tell but Putin's death would be exactly the off-ramp Russia needs in order to blame everything on him and retreat from Ukraine in exchange for an easing or dropping of the sanctions that are crippling their economy.

In the realm of the more "on the ground" practical sphere, the incursion seems to have helped Ukraine to destroy a significant amount of Russia's airforce: we're hearing of destroyed or damaged aircraft and helicopters multiple times a week at the moment alongside the destruction of large caches of the glide bombs that have been doing so much damage to Ukrainian defences and demolition of infrastructure (railways, bridges and ferries) that are critical to Russian military logistics.

This isn't as simple as taking a chunk of Russia to swap for Ukrainian land in any future negotiations. It's textbook Sun Tzu: hit your enemy where he is weak and least expecting it. Yes, territory in Kursk may become a bargaining chip at some point but that clearly isn't the primary objective of the operation.

“If I determine the enemy's disposition of forces while I have no perceptible form, I can concentrate my forces while the enemy is fragmented. The pinnacle of military deployment approaches the formless: if it is formless, then even the deepest spy cannot discern it nor the wise make plans against it.”

When is he actually going to act on this pressure or red line.

He has already started.

And he continues to be able to throw lives in to the meat grinder. He did it at Avdiivka, Vuhledar & Bahkmut; and as backward as that type of warfare is, he is still managing to do it. Will he do the same at Kursk and can Ukraine make it stick?

Despite all the failings you've listed there's little to suggest Putin will have an "unfortunate"😉 accident from a tenth floor window. His (current) General in charge of the response to the Kursk losses was recently indicted for war crimes against Ukrainian infrastructure; I doubt he'll shy away from continuing in this manner because of what the ICC think.

Nope. Nowhere did I even hint at that.

Nonsensical response.

I think Rommel being in Germany (because of the very bad weather in the English channel) had more of a negative impact … Hitler even when notified at 10 ish was reluctant to sign for additional forces to be released, (thinking the Allies could be easily defeated anyway)