Despite assurances from Beltway pundits about successes of Ukraine’s Kursk incursion, Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskiy’s latest attempt to replace actual events with a fake narrative has resulted in yet another predictable disaster in the real world of war and politics. The essence of this attack consisted of a propaganda/public relations component, possibly incorporating a terrorism element.
The incursion appears to have had limited effect on Russians, most of whom quickly adapted to the news and adjusted their feelings about it. Levada’s monthly polling showed a barely significant jump just above the margin of error from July negative feelings (18%) to August (24. However, this is dwarfed by a more significant shift in autumn 2022 when Putin announced a mobilization of new soldiers for the SMO, which led to a doubling of those admitting to negative feelings (from 21% to 47.
The incursion was also supposed to provoke greater discomfort with the SMO and Putin’s course. However, the reverse has occurred as support for the SMO strengthened since the Kursk invasion, with the percentage of those supporting the military’s war efforts slightly increasing (from 78% to 80%) and the percentage of those who supported continuing the war without peace negotiations and starting talks shifting from 58% and 34%, respectively, to 49% and 41%, respectively.
The Kursk gambit’s unstated and likely real goal may have been to seize control of the Kursk NPP or nuclear weapons storage site in order to hold the local population and Putin government hostage to a possible terrorist attack, with Ukraine possibly trading control of the Kursk object(s) for control over the Zaporozhe NPP. However, this plan has backfired as Moscow and all Russia are even more committed to ‘Putin’s unprovoked war of aggression.
The incursion has led to significant destruction of Ukrainian forces, with many of the troops who made the incursion likely to be encircled shortly. At the same time, Russian advances have been accelerated along much of the front, particularly on the Donetsk and southern Donetsk fronts, which will lead to a more rapid fall of Pokrovsk, Vugledar, and the entire Ukrainian defense effort east of the Dnieper River.
The Second Ruin of Ukraine continues with Western crocodile tears and calls to keep up the fight in defense of NATO expansion for as long as ‘it’ takes.