Agrégateur de flux

Summary and Key Points: Ukraine's surprise offensive into Russia's Kursk region, involving up to 10,000 troops, has dramatically shifted the dynamics of the ongoing conflict. The operation, which captured over 1,000 square kilometers and 82 settlements, aims to force Russia to realign its forces, drawing them away from Ukrainian frontlines.

-The psychological impact on both Ukrainian and Russian populations is significant, with Russia's inability to defend its territory undermining President Putin's standing.

-While the offensive doesn't alter Russia's numerical advantage, it signals a momentum shift in the war, potentially affecting the longevity of Western support for Ukraine.

Ukraine's Bold Offensive: How a Surprise Incursion into Russia is Changing the War

After more than two years on the defensive, Ukrainian forces have flipped the script, pouring over the Russian border and seizing control of more than 1,000 square kilometers of territory in a week. And unlike Ukraine’s previous and usually short-lived raids across the border, this time, Ukrainian forces are settling in for a fight, fortifying defensive positions throughout the occupied Kursk region in what Ukrainian officials are calling a “buffer zone” to protect against continued airstrikes launched into Ukraine from the area. 

This surprise offensive went on for days before Ukrainian officials shed any light on its objectives. We now know that the theory posited by many analysts throughout the week – that this incursion is meant to force a realignment of Russian forces after months of steady but grinding advances deeper into Ukrainian territory – is true. 

Behind the rifles of thousands of battle-hardened troops, Ukraine has taken hundreds of Russian soldiers prisoner and captured dozens of towns and villages, but the biggest blow of this ongoing offensive may be to the reputation and standing of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

How Ukraine’s invasion of Russia began

In the early morning of August 6, Ukrainian forces numbering as many as 10,000 according to some reports, launched a surprise offensive in western Russia that had been planned and staged behind a veil of complete secrecy. The attack was such a surprise that it not only took Russia’s border troops completely off guard, but Ukraine’s Western allies as well – at least if statements made by various government officials are to be believed. 

Ukrainian troops and armored vehicles moved quickly, crossing the border on multiple vectors and rapidly capturing town after town. As news of the offensive reached the media, it was accompanied by social media posts uploaded by Ukrainian troops, showing them pulling Russian flags down.

In one video, vetted by the New York Times, a Ukrainian soldier can be seen standing on the shoulders of another, breaking a Russian flag off of its wooden post and tossing it aside. That video was confirmed to be taken in Sverdlikovo, just a few miles inside Russia. Another video, filmed about five miles further west in the town of Daryino, shows a similar scene, with one Ukrainian soldier tossing a Russian flag in the mud as another one flexes his muscles. 

“The first days of the Ukrainian operation in the Kursk region should be assessed as very successful, although its ultimate goals remain unclear,” Ruslan Pukhov, the director of the security research group CAST out of Moscow, told the New York Times. “In moral terms, the Russian Federation has taken a powerful blow.”

This effort was arguably only successful thanks to the immense degree of secrecy surrounding it, but in hindsight, it’s beginning to get easier to see how it came together. A drone battalion from Ukraine’s 22nd Mechanized Brigade was spotted near the Russian border in July after more than a year of fighting on the front lines some 80 miles to the West. Troops from the 82nd Air Assault Brigade, last known to be fighting elsewhere in the Kharkiv region, were spotted near the border soon thereafter. Before long, troops from the 80th Air Assault Brigade seemed to join them. 

This amassing of forces, despite its secrecy, didn’t go unnoticed by Russian intelligence. According to Andrei Gurulyov, a prominent member of Russia’s parliament and a former senior ranking officer in the Russian Army, a report on the buildup was submitted to Russian leadership nearly a month before the assault. 

“But from the top came the order not to panic, and that those above know better,” Gurulyov acknowledged on Russian State Television. 

Progress comes with a cost

While the attack has since become something of a morale lightning rod for the embattled Ukrainian population, for many of the troops taking their fight for survival to Russian soil, the combat was just like any other day in this conflict. 

“Grenades and mortars look the same wherever you are,” explained a 43-year-old Ukrainian soldier named Ivan, who’s fighting in Russia. 

Ivan’s experiences over the past few weeks serve as a grim reminder that even this successful operation has come at a significant cost. He and his unit were advancing into Russian territory at an average of an astonishing 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) a day, fighting their way across open fields and railway lines, and rotating in fresh troops under cover of darkness as each night fell. But after three days of fighting off their back foot, Russian forces finally started to get their bearings and unleashed an onslaught of air-dropped glide bombs onto the Ukrainian forces on the third night, despite the obvious collateral damage done to Russian territory. 

These glide bombs have proven highly effective for Russian forces in recent months. They’re similar in function to America’s own JDAM-ERs, made up of satellite guidance kits and expandable glide-wings mounted on inexpensive gravity bombs. They’re exceedingly difficult to intercept, offer a high degree of precision, and can be dropped from 40 miles out. 

Ivan’s unit instantly lost a dozen men when the first wave of bombs hit, with several others injured.

“Everything was burning. Arms here, legs there,” Ivan recounted. 

Ivan himself took shrapnel to the groin and chest, forcing him to be evacuated back to Ukraine for medical treatment and allowing him to share a few scant details about the ongoing operation with journalists from The Economist. But after nearly 30 months of fighting for its survival, Ukraine is no stranger to loss. Even as Russian glide bombs rained down, the offensive progressed – and the following day, on August 10 – some Ukrainian units had pressed a full 40 kilometers (about 25 miles) into Russia, rapidly approaching the city of Kursk, which serves as the capital of the Kursk Oblast. 

More Ukrainian soldiers have shined some light on how Ukraine has managed to capture more territory in a week than Russia has in months: A 28-year-old paratrooper from Ukraine’s 33rd Brigade named Angol made it 30 kilometers (a bit more than 18 miles) into Russia before being injured – he isn’t sure if he was hit by artillery, a glide bomb, or even friendly fire, such is the haze of battle on the front lines. 

According to Angol, even amid the heavy fighting, Russian troops were on the run, enabled by covering airstrikes and artillery fire as they fled their defensive positions, abandoning equipment, weapons, and ammunition as they ran. 

It seems the Russian troops defending the border believed the red line drawn by Putin, which has seen Western governments disallow the use of their weapon systems to attack Russian territory, would be enough to insulate them from the fighting. As thousands of battle-hardened Ukrainian troops tore through the region, they seemed to continue taking Russians by surprise even days into the offensive. 

“We sent our most combat-ready units to the weakest point on their border,” an unnamed member of Ukraine’s general staff deployed to the region told the press. “Conscript soldiers faced paratroopers and simply surrendered.” 

And surrender they did. By August 13, seven days into Ukraine’s surprise invasion, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that 74 Russian settlements were now under Ukrainian occupation and that “hundreds” of Russian troops had surrendered. By the following day, the number of Russian towns and villages inside of Ukrainian control had expanded once again, to 82. 

In one engagement, Ukrainian forces captured 102 soldiers out of Russia’s 488th Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment at once. 

“They captured and cleared a sprawling, concrete and well-fortified company stronghold from all sides – with underground communications and personnel accommodation, a canteen, an armoury and even a bathhouse,” an unnamed source told Reuters.

According to Russia’s state media, more than 132,000 Russian civilians have now fled their homes in the Kursk region to avoid the fighting.

“Russia brought war to others, and now it is coming home,” Zelensky said in his speech. 

It’s worth noting that despite the hesitation of Western leaders to allow Ukraine to take the fight onto Russian soil, it’s evident that this offensive has involved the widespread use of American-supplied vehicles, arms, and munitions – in what some argue could be seen as a violation of yet another of Putin’s “red lines.” However, U.S. officials don’t see it that way. With countless long-range strikes launched into Ukrainian territory from the Kursk region, both Ukrainian and American officials have deftly taken to calling the offensive a “self-defense” action. 

“They are taking actions to protect themselves from attacks,” Sabrina Singh, the Pentagon’s deputy press secretary, said on Thursday.

And while Ukraine’s progress into Russia has slowed in recent days, those protective actions have not. On the night of August 14, Ukraine launched its largest long-range drone attack into Russian territory to date, engaging weapons storage facilities and warehouses across four different Russian Air Force installations. Some sources suggest these attacks were aimed at reducing Russia’s available inventory of glide bombs. 

Russia claimed to have shot down 117 drones and at least four missiles during the attack; the true outcome of these airstrikes remains somewhat murky. 

Why did Ukraine invade Russia?

It now seems evident that the offensive has multiple overlapping objectives. As the Atlantic Council contends, the attack’s most obvious goal is to force Russia to realign after months of grueling but steady progress.

“By attacking across the lightly defended border and seizing Russian territory, Ukrainian commanders believe they can force the Kremlin to withdraw troops from the front lines of the war in Ukraine in order to redeploy them for the defense of Russia itself,” the Atlantic Council’s Peter Dickinson postulates. 

This has seemingly been confirmed by former Ukrainian defense minister Andriy Zagorodnyuk, and to some extent, it seems to be working. 

“Russia has relocated some of its units from both Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions of Ukraine’s south,” Dmytro Lykhoviy, a Ukrainian army spokesman, told POLITICO on Tuesday.

The U.S.-based think-tank Institute for the Study of War (ISW) has been tracking and reporting on claims posted by pro-Russian military bloggers, who may regularly trade in Kremlin-sourced disinformation, but also often provide more detail into ongoing operations than official Russian channels. According to the ISW’s analysis, at least some Russian irregular warfare units have been pulled from the Donetsk front in eastern Ukraine to be redeployed in a defensive posture inside Russia.

“Russian military command has determined that possible disruptions to the offensive operations in northern Kharkiv Oblast and other less-critical frontline areas are an acceptable risk to adequately respond to the Ukrainian incursion in Kursk Oblast,” the ISW assessed. 

But despite these changes, thus far, there’s been little shift in Russia’s overall defensive posture, even as Ukraine appointed Major General Eduard Moskalyov as the new military commandant of captured Russian territory. 

“Their commanders aren’t idiots,” said The Econimist’s unnamed Ukrainian general-staff source. “They are moving forces, but not as quickly as we would like. They know we can’t extend logistics 80 or 100 km.”

What are the other implications of this offensive?

Ultimately, whether this offensive can force a redistribution of Russian forces across the conflict’s front lines depends on several factors, some of which are easier to quantify than others. 

The psychological impact of Ukraine’s rapid advance into Russia, on both the Ukrainian and Russian populations, can’t be overstated. For Ukraine, the rapid progress serves as a desperately needed morale boost after years of Russia gobbling up Ukrainian territory. On the other side of the border, however, this attack has brought the war home for the Russian people, and perhaps even more importantly, shined a spotlight on Putin’s inability to defend Russian soil and sovereignty amid a conflict his government still refuses to call a war. 

Even now, Moscow is referring to the new defensive effort inside Russia as a “counter-terrorism operation,” and Putin himself described the attack as nothing more than a “large-scale provocation” – both seemingly intentional ways of framing the offensive as less severe than a foreign military capturing Russian land. 

To some extent, the value of this operation may ultimately be dictated by how Russia chooses to respond. If Ukraine succeeds in fortifying captured positions and digging in, Russian forces will have no choice but to respond, reducing the depth of seasoned warfighters on other frontlines throughout Ukraine. If Russia doesn’t mass enough forces to push Ukraine back, however, the seized territory could quickly become a bargaining chip in future peace negotiations. 

From a geopolitical perspective, Ukraine’s attack – and Russia’s apparent inability to respond – has further reduced Russia’s military standing among global and even regional powers. Once seen as the world’s second strongest military force, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has demonstrated conclusively that its Cold War-era warfare doctrine struggles to function on the modern battlefield; that its centralized command structure adapts on the battlefield very slowly; and Russia’s emphasis on fielding small batches of high-profile platforms aimed at securing global prestige or lucrative foreign sales, has come at the cost of significant atrophy across the breadth of its conventional forces. 

While cynical to say as Ukraine continues to fight for its very survival, this entire conflict has already proven to be a massive strategic loss for Russia and certainly for Putin’s legacy. Once seen as a strategic mastermind and the only man who could return Russia to a romanticized vision of its former Soviet glory, there seems to be little hope of Putin emerging from this war as anything more than the man who sacrificed a sizeable portion of Russia’s military power and hundreds of thousands of lives, to capture about 20 percent of a nation the size of Texas that lies on Russia’s border. 

What does the invasion of Russia mean for the future of the Ukraine war?

Ukraine’s rapid success in taking Russian territory doesn’t change Russia’s massive numerical advantage in troops and military hardware; undo its territorial gains; or mean Western governments are giving Ukraine free reign on how to use its Western weapon systems. Nevertheless, it does mark a significant shift in the war’s momentum. And now, with Western-sourced F-16s starting to take to the sky – something many consider to be a momentum-shifting victory in itself – the timing couldn’t be better for Ukraine to once again shock the world, and the Russian military, with what it’s capable of. 

Since the conflict’s onset, Russia has been watching the clock wind down on Western support for Ukraine, knowing full well that it was only a matter of time before partisan bickering and concerns about dollars spent would sour public perceptions of the effort. All it needed to do was outlast the Western public’s attention span and financial tolerance, and once the flow of weapons and munitions dried up, Ukraine was as good as conquered. 

But now, with more than 132,000 Russians displaced from their homes, and drone and missile strikes raining down deeper into Russia and in greater numbers than ever before, that waiting game may have just been turned on its head. Now, the question becomes: which population will fold first, those providing support, or those being forced to flee their homes?

While the idea of Russian civilians on the run isn’t something anyone should celebrate, it reminds me of an old story I used to tell my Marines when we’d find ourselves in a bad situation of our own creation:

A group of construction workers would meet in the parking lot of their job site every afternoon to break for lunch, and every day, one of the guys would open his lunch box and sigh with disgust. 

“Egg salad sandwich again,” he’d lament, shaking his head and slamming the lunch box shut. 

Finally, one of his coworkers asked him, “If you hate egg salad sandwiches so much, why not ask your old lady to make you something different?” 

And he replied, “What are you talking about? I’m not married… I make my own sandwiches.” 

About the Author: Alex Hollings 

Alex Hollings is a writer, dad, and Marine veteran.

This article was first published by Sandboxx News.

Top 4 Points You Need to Be Aware on the B-21 Bomber: The B-21 Raider, a sixth-generation bomber being developed by Northrop Grumman for the U.S. Air Force, is designed to serve multiple roles, including battle management, intelligence collection, and interception.

-Smaller and more radar-resistant than its predecessors, the B-21 incorporates modular systems for future upgrades.

-The Air Force plans to procure at least 100 units by the decade's end, but past experiences with programs like the B-2 and F-22, where budget cuts drastically reduced production numbers, raise concerns.

-The Raider's procurement could face similar risks, despite its importance in countering potential threats from adversaries like China and Russia.

B-21 Raider: Crucial to U.S. Defense, but Will It Avoid the Fate of the B-2 and F-22?

The B-21 Raider is being developed by Northrop Grumman to serve the U.S. Air Force as a battle manager, intelligence-collection platform, and intercept aircraft. Initially debuted in late 2022, the sixth-generation bomber is expected to sport a range of enhancements over its predecessors. 

The service released images of the upcoming airframe in 2023, showing a bomber much smaller than the B-2 Spirit. Sandboxx News suggests that the B-21’s wingspan could be roughly 15% shorter than previous bombers, a significant advantage that will make the new aircraft harder for enemy radar to detect. The Raider will incorporate modular systems that will enable seamless upgrades as future technologies become available, imitating the F-35 Lightning II’s open-system architecture.

Considering the Raider’s capabilities, it is only logical that the platform comes with a hefty price tag. The Air Force hopes to introduce at least 100 of these bombers by the end of the decade. Some analysts want the service to acquire far more Raiders than that, believing the aircraft is crucial to maintaining operational readiness for potential conflicts with China, Russia, or other adversaries. 

Earlier this year, Northrop Grumman reported a $1.6 billion pre-tax charge on the Raider program. More recently, though, the Air Force said it is seeing a drop in the per-unit cost of the B-21 following negotiations with the manufacturer. In 2022, the Air Force said it would remain under the average procurement cost of $692 million per unit.

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall noted that the service is planning for other aspects of the Raider program, not just constructing the bomber. From building the facilities needed to operate and maintain the B-21, to training pilots and the crew members who will work on it, many more details need to be finalized and funded. 

“I’ve seen programs get into trouble because there was too much focus on the platform and not enough on all the things that are necessary to support it,” Kendall said. “Hopefully, we will have avoided that in the case of the B-21.”

The B-21 Nightmare: Ending Up Getting Cut Like the B-2 and F-22 

While B-21 Raider procurement plans appear promising, the Air Force has a history of cutting new platforms. 

In the 1990s, the U.S. halted the B-2 bomber program at just 20 planes. The Air Force originally wanted to build 75 of these airframes, but budgetary constraints and other priorities limited the output, and the B-2 program didn’t live up to its potential. A similar story played out with the F-22 Raptor, the world’s first fifth-generation jet. The Air Force initially wanted to procure 750 Raptors, but the total was cut in 2009 to 187 due to high costs, the arrival of the newer F-35, and the country’s shift to the War on Terror.

The Air Force and U.S. lawmakers should be wary of similarly cutting the Raider program. While drones and other systems associated with future wars cannot be ignored, America must also prepare for the current threat climate. Maintaining a superior stealth bomber fleet will be critical if a war with China erupts over the next decade.

About the Author: Maya Carlin

Maya Carlin, National Security Writer with The National Interest, is an analyst with the Center for Security Policy and a former Anna Sobol Levy Fellow at IDC Herzliya in Israel. She has by-lines in many publications, including The National Interest, Jerusalem Post, and Times of Israel. You can follow her on Twitter: @MayaCarlin. 

All images are Creative Commons. 

Summary and Everything You Need to Know: The U.S. is advancing in the race to produce the world’s first sixth-generation stealth bomber with the B-21 Raider, as China and Russia develop their H-20 and PAK-DA programs.

-Despite concerns over costs, recent negotiations have lowered the Raider's per-unit price, making it more feasible. The B-21, smaller and stealthier than its predecessor, the B-2 Spirit, will serve as an intelligence platform, battle manager, and interceptor, with modular systems for future upgrades.

-The Raider’s introduction is crucial for U.S. national security, particularly as China progresses with its own stealth bomber development.

B-21 Raider: The U.S. Stealth Bomber Leading the Sixth-Generation Race

The race to produce the world’s first sixth-generation stealth bomber is on. As the United States moves to introduce its B-21 Raider, China and Russia continue to develop their H-20 and PAK-DA programs. 

The United States has long fielded superior bombers. The B-2 Spirit, B-52 Stratofortress, and B-1 Lancer are still lethal aircraft, providing the U.S. Air Force with long-range strike and deterrence capabilities. But the Raider’s timely introduction is crucial, and while some analysts argue that the B-21 program is too expensive to justify, the new bomber is worth the high price tag.

Cost is Decreasing

Following negotiations between the Air Force and manufacturer Northrop Grumman, the per-unit cost of the B-21 Raider has gone down. This was first reported back several months ago. 

The service’s secretary, Frank Kendall, told the Senate Appropriations subcommittee months ago that the cost decline indicates negotiations are headed in the right direction. The Raider program was expected to cost roughly $692 million per unit in 2022 when the bomber debuted. While the Air Force has yet to announce the specific decrease in price, the service has said that lower costs will not mean lower procurement rates.

While this news is positive for Raider advocates, Northrop has yet to comment on Kendall’s remarks. The manufacturer reported a hefty charge on the Raider program toward the end of 2023, citing increased production costs and other economic disruptions. Kendall has warned that “[I]’ve seen programs get into trouble because there was too much focus on the platform and not enough on all the things that are necessary to support it,” adding that “hopefully, we will have avoided that in the case of the B-21.”

Around this time, the Pentagon’s undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, William LaPlante, said that the Raider would be produced at an intentionally low rate in case of looming budgetary cuts. He also noted that lessons learned from the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program brought about new measures to ensure lower costs and a smoother production process.

What We Know About the B-21 Raider Program

The Raider is designed to be the Air Force’s intelligence collection platform, battle manager, and interceptor aircraft. In 2022, the Raider was officially unveiled at Northrop’s production facilities in Palmdale, California.

Smaller than its Spirit predecessor, the B-21 will be more difficult for enemy aircraft and radar to detect—an essential attribute.

The new B-21 Raider bomber is also expected to incorporate modular systems that will enable upgrades to the airframe as new technologies emerge—similar to the F-35 Lightning II.

Regardless of the Raider’s final price tag, this new bomber fleet is essential to U.S. national security. Its timely introduction is crucial, considering the progress Beijing has made toward its own H-20 stealth bomber. As U.S. defense secretary Lloyd Austin said during the unveiling of the Raider: “America’s defense will always be rooted in deterring conflict. So we are again making it plain to any potential foe that the risk and the cost of aggression far outweigh any conceivable gains.”

About the Author: Maya Carlin

Maya Carlin, National Security Writer with The National Interest, is an analyst with the Center for Security Policy and a former Anna Sobol Levy Fellow at IDC Herzliya in Israel. She has by-lines in many publications, including The National Interest, Jerusalem Post, and Times of Israel. You can follow her on Twitter: @MayaCarlin.

All images are Creative Commons and/or Shutterstock. 

Pausing our current technological progress would only help the world’s most privileged.

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Repülőgép-hordozós riportutunk 2005-ös albumából előhalászott F-14-es fotók után következzenek a Tomcattel egykor szorosan együttműködő E-2C Hawkeye-ról és logisztikai leszármazottjáról, a C-2A Greyhoundról készült képek. Akárcsak az F-14-es, ez a két légcsavaros-gázturbinás gép is a Grumman gyártósorairól került le a hatvanas évek derekán. Először az E-2-es készült el, majd szárnyainak, hajtóműveinek, légcsavarjainak, futóműveinek, vezérsíkjainak felhasználásával és a törzs teljes áttervezésével a C-2-es. Bár általában nem ezek a típusok vannak az érdeklődés fókuszában, a hordozófedélzeti repülőezred, mint komplex rendszer működése szempontjából nélkülözhetetlen gépekről beszélhetünk.

E-2C Hawkeye

C-2A Greyhound

*

[...] Bővebben!

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