A good review piece from Daily Kos….
Ukraine Update: Pokrovsk, Kursk, Putin, Zelenskyy
Since the last update in June, it seems that a few things have happened.
Russia launched an assault toward the city of Pokrovsk that threatens Ukraine’s ability to defend a large portion of Donetsk. Ukraine crossed the border into Russia, gaining control over 1,000 square kilometers of the Kurskregion. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reorganized important sectors of the Ukrainian government and fought off growing political opposition. In the air and on the ground, drones continued to improve and redefine their role in this war. Ukraine triggered unbelievable explosions at ammunition storage facilities in Russia as disputes continued over Ukraine’s ability to use Western weapons deep inside Russia. Zelenskyy pissed off MAGA Republicans by visiting Pennsylvania, where 800,000 Polish Americans are deeply concerned about the possibility of Russia carrying its illegal war into NATO countries. And Donald Trump said something profoundly stupidthat also happened to be about Ukraine.
Catching up on all these topics—and a dozen more—isn’t possible in a single article. So think of this more as an overview of just a few areas intended to bring things up to date so that future Ukraine Updates can do what they do best: get way, way down into the weeds of how, why, and where.
In this war, three months is a long, long time….
IS VLADIMIR PUTIN LOSING HIS GRIP ON POWER?
There have been rumors in the past that Russians were growing tired of seeing hundreds of thousands of men shipped off to Ukraine, and hundreds of thousands returning with serious injuries. Or not at all. But as usual in Russia, recruitment for the illegal, unprovoked invasion of Ukraine has largely affected outlying ethnic districts, leaving the power base in Moscow and St. Petersburg only lightly affected.
Despite a few rapidly suppressed protests, talk of potential coups, and a lot of turnover in the military, Putin seems as thoroughly ensconced as ever. Even the two-day aborted coup by Yevgeny Prigozhin and his Wagner Group mercenaries appears to have left Putin unmoved — and Prigozhin won’t be trying again.
As is always the case, what’s going on within the Kremlin walls is a complete mystery, and any claim that Putin is on shaky ground is itself… shaky. Keep that in mind….
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RUSSIAN FORCES CONTINUE TO ADVANCE IN DONETSK OBLAST
Until a few months ago, Ukraine had done an astounding job of holding back Russian forces near the occupied city of Donetsk. Even in the early days of Putin’s second Ukraine invasion, when the Russian military came pouring through areas to the north and east, Ukraine was largely able to hold Russian troops behind the lines that had been established following the 2014 invasion.
The way that Ukrainians held onto positions like those around the town of Avdiivka and Vuhledar, and the losses they inflicted on Russian forces that seemed locked in mindless efforts to advance, became legendary. However, when Russia finally captured—and utterly destroyed—Avdiivka in February, Ukraine fell back to positions that lacked the defensive infrastructure of those nearer to Donetsk. Within weeks, that single breach turned into a slow flood as Russia pushed through the former line at multiple locations….
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UKRAINE’S INCURSION INTO KURSK IS STILL A GAMBLE
Even as the Russians were gathering force in Donetsk, Ukrainian forces attacked positions across the border in Russia’s Kursk Oblast in the first week of August. In a matter of days, the Ukrainian government announced that their forces were in control of over 1,200 square kilometers of Russian territory in a band over 40 km wide and reaching over 20 km into Russia.
Take that, Russians moving 15 meters a day.
In the first three weeks of combat in the region, Russia replied by moving forces in piecemeal, apparently unwilling to withdraw troops from the fighting in Donetsk. And a lot of those fits and starts were ass-kicked by what was in actuality not all that large a Ukrainian force. Russia’s attempt to remove the roughly 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers who crossed the border in the initial wave was also complicated by a well-timed HIMARS or two that simply shreddedRussians at gathering points….