August 9, 2024

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY (MOSCOW EDITION): Ukraine ambushes Russian convoy in Kursk as Kremlin declares emergency.

A video circulated by Russian military bloggers showed a destroyed convoy, with bodies just visible inside some trucks, on the E38 east-west highway at Oktyabrskoe, a location far deeper inside Russia than any previously confirmed fighting since Ukraine’s forces crossed the border on Tuesday.

Commentators said the attack, reminiscent of Ukrainian attacks on Russian troops besieging Kyiv in the first weeks of the war, demonstrated an effective hit-and-run strategy, but the incursion appeared likely to draw an escalating response from the Kremlin, and its overall outcome remains profoundly uncertain.

Russia’s defence ministry said at lunchtime that it was transferring military reserves to the Kursk region, according to the Interfax news agency, including Grad rockets, artillery and tanks. A video released by Zvezda, official Russian military media, showed a convoy of lorries carrying armoured vehicles down a highway.

Ukraine isn’t about to march on Moscow or anything like that. But Kyiv was able to assemble several companies’ worth of mechanized soldiers without anyone noticing for what has turned into an extended and embarrassing cross-border raid.

Assuming the UA can get back out largely unscathed, that ought to have the Kremlin wondering where and when the next attack might come.

At the very least, Moscow’s redeployments have taken some of the pressure off the UA in the East, where Russian forces had been gaining.

UPDATE:

That’s worse than embarrassing.

Posted at 2:50 pm by Stephen Green