Ukraine’s Russian Invasion

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In a stunning turn of events in Eastern Europe this month, Ukraine invaded Russia. The Ukrainian incursion began on August 6, 2024 – blindsiding Russian border guards before penetrating into Russian territory while facing relatively light resistance.

The initial cross-border assault captured 28 settlements in the Kursk region – site of some of the most ferocious Eastern Front fighting during World War II. It resulted in the evacuation of some 200,000 Russian civilians. While the Russo-Ukrainian conflict has featured an unprecedented level of live social posts from soldiers on both sides, Ukrainian forces successfully implemented operational security protocols preventing news of the incursion from leaking for days after the incident.

When enough evidence of the incursion became public to make denials untenable, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky issued a statement arguing “it is entirely justified to destroy Russian terrorists wherever they are.”

(Click to view)

“Russia needs to be forced into peace, especially if Putin is so set on fighting,” Zelensky said before referencing the infamous sinking of the Russian nuclear-powered submarine Kursk at the beginning of Putin’s political career.

Zelensky boasted Putin’s career would end with another Kursk catastrophe.

Putin vowed to “squeeze the enemy” out of Kursk, and to give Kiev a reprisal “worthy” of the invasion. He is reportedly preparing to send an army of freshly trained conscripts to eliminate the Ukrainian invaders.

While Ukraine’s initial thrust into Russia was rapid, units that sped through lightly defended hinterlands are reported to be slowing as they approach more heavily fortified urban areas

(Click to view)

The Kursk invasion comes after months of incremental losses of Ukrainian territory to Russian invaders. Ukraine’s much anticipated 2023 counteroffensive campaign – a bid to reacquire its own territory – fell flat, and was followed by Russia’s reacquisition of the city of Avdiivka.

Prior to the invasion, Anatol Lieven, director of the Eurasia program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, discussed the fundamental disadvantages facing Ukraine in Time Magazine.

“For Ukrainians to stand a chance, military history suggests that they would need a 3-to-2 advantage in manpower and considerably more firepower,” Lieven said. “Ukraine enjoyed these advantages in the first year of the war, but they now lie with Russia, and it is very difficult to see how Ukraine can recover them.”

“The Biden Administration is entirely correct to warn that without further massive U.S. military aid, Ukrainian resistance is likely to collapse this year,” Lieven warned. “Officials also need to recognize that even if this aid continues, there is no realistic chance of total Ukrainian victory next year, or the year after that. Even if the Ukrainians can build up their forces, Russia can deepen its defenses even more.”

While war is incredibly unpredictable, it is highly unlikely Ukraine’s capture of roughly 1,100 square kilometers of strategically unimportant Russian territory will change the fundamental calculus of the conflict.

Which begs the question… why invade Russia?

There are four (non-mutually exclusive) credible explanations for Ukraine’s decision to invade:

1) To divert Russian assets away from the frontline in Ukraine.

2) To gain leverage in future peace negotiations.

3) To achieve a symbolic victory.

4) To provoke a Russian response that gives Ukraine’s allies a reason to fully enter the war.

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By all accounts, Ukraine has achieved their first objective, with the Institute for the Study of War concluding that “ongoing Ukrainian operations in Kursk Oblast are generating tangible defensive, logistical, and security impacts within Russia.”

It’s safe to say that Russia’s efforts in Ukraine have only been hindered by the unexpected need to divert resources away from the Ukrainian front lines – but it must be noted Ukraine also reduced its front line firepower to execute the attack.

It remains to be seen whether Ukraine can keep its Russian territorial gains, but the invasion force’s erection of defensive fortifications suggests it doesn’t intend to pull out in the short term.

While it’s hard to gauge the symbolic effect of Ukraine’s incursion in Ukraine and Russia as so many of the primary sources are deeply biased, it’s clear that the move is being portrayed in a positive light in western media.

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According to the New York Times the invasion “offered a rare chance to puncture the Kremlin’s narrative that Russia is steadily heading toward victory.”

In an op-ed for The Telegraph, colonel Hamish de Bretton-Gordon – a former British Army officer – claims Russia’s response to the incursion demonstrates Putin won’t respond to threats to the Russian motherland with nuclear weapons.

He goes on to argue that Putin’s failure to nuke Ukraine demonstrates why western nations should remove the remaining restrictions on what Ukraine can target with missiles provided by western allies.

“It must be made clear, even to the most timid leaders in Europe, that the nuclear option is not actually available to Putin,” de Bretton-Gordon wrote, adding that “the West both can and should remove the shackles it has put on Ukraine and allow that bold nation to fight with its hands free, using its Western weaponry to its full range and capability.” 

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FITSNews’ own Prioleau Alexander (who served as an officer in the Marine Corps) has a very different take.

“What the West does not yet understand is that Putin is a sociopath, trained by the murderous KGB, and devoid of humanity. This war is an “all-in” bet, and he cannot lose it” Alexander wrote in 2022, concluding that a loss for Putin “means his death or exile, and he has no intention of letting either happen.”

“From what I can ascertain from Russian insiders, Putin will use nukes before he suffers the disgrace of defeat,” Alexander added. “Keep in mind as well that even in the case of global nuclear war, Putin won’t miss a meal.”

This brings us to reason number four, “to provoke a Russian response that gives Ukraine’s allies a reason to fully enter the war.”

With the American presidential election just around the corner – and with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump promising to “end the war in Ukraine in twenty-four hours” – the pressure is on for Putin’s equally sociopathic rivals in the west, who went “all-in” in 2014 by installing a pro American government and a plethora of western military and intelligence assets on Russia’s border, to escalate the conflict or prepare to come to accept unfavorable terms at the negotiating table.

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U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina has been spoiling for a fight with Russia for years. In 2016 he traveled to Ukraine with the the late senator John McCain to tell Ukrainian troops “your fight is our fight” and that “2017 is the year of offense.”

There is little doubt that 2017 would have been the year of offense had Hillary Clinton won the 2016 presidential election, but the Trump presidency ultimately delayed Putin’s inevitable invasion.

“I knew that he always wanted Ukraine. I used to talk to him about it” Trump said, claiming to tell Putin ‘You can’t do it. You’re not gonna do it.”

While McCain didn’t live to see the war he so desired, Graham has continued to carry the neoconservative torch faithfully, consistently encouraging Ukraine and its western allies to exert greater force against Russia.

Graham called Ukraine’s recent incursions into Russia “bold’ and “beautiful” during a visit to Kiyv last week, Zelensky reporting the pair discussed “our need to use long-range weapons” to “bring this war to a just end.”

What exactly do Graham and his fellow war hawks consider to be a “just end?” … It’s not entirely clear, but it is clear that Russia’s population is four times larger than Ukraine’s (whose average soldier is in their mid 40’s), and that absent a massive injection of fresh troops, no amount of precision guided munitions will change the ultimate trajectory of the conflict, that is, unless those precision guided munitions are used in such a way to provoke Putin into taking action that would invoke the collective defense clause of the NATO treaty.

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Graham clearly supports American tanks being used in an invasion of Russia, and appears to encourage the executive branch to green-light American missiles being shot deeper into Russian territory. On the trip Graham also called on retired American aviators to come to Ukraine to pilot the American F-16’s recently delivered to the country.

What won’t Graham support?

Just this week Ukraine was accused of blowing up the Nord Stream II pipeline in order to draw Germany further into the war. German prosecutors allege that 44-year old Ukrainian operator Volodymyr Zhuravlov was a member of the team responsible for the September 2022 bombing that destroyed three of the four Nord Stream pipelines transporting Russian fuel to Ukraine.

Germany’s economy, and their ability to heat their homes in the winter, was largely reliant on Russian gas shipments. The Nord Steam pipeline’s destruction forced them to turn to the United States to fill the void.

Leaked private messages indicate the the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) knew of Ukraine’s plans well in advance of the attack, but did not stop it.

What are the odds that the CIA was as “shocked” by Ukraine’s invasion of Russia as they purport to be … I’ll let you be the judge.

One thing is clear – a regime that blows up the critical infrastructure of its “ally” is a regime that would intentionally provoke an expanded war to achieve ends it perceives to be beneficial.

Why did Ukraine invade Russia… it’s too soon to be certain, but it’s highly likely that Ukraine cannot retake all (or perhaps even any) of it’s hitherto occupied territory without a serious re-shuffling of the deck.

Hopefully this play is not another insidious ploy to involuntarily draw Europe, and America, further into the war without their consent – but rest assured that if it is, South Carolina has a senator that will eagerly declare the urgent need for another generation of Europeans and Americans to perish in the meat grinder of modern warfare.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …

(Via: Travis Bell)

Dylan Nolan is the director of special projects at FITSNews. He graduated from the Darla Moore school of business in 2021 with an accounting degree. Got a tip or story idea for Dylan? Email him here. You can also engage him socially @DNolan2000.

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