President Volodymyr Zelenskyi with the Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces General Oleksandr Sirsky, Photo: Office of the President of Ukraine
Ukraine has learned important lessons from last year’s failed summer offensive and has prepared a new operation with the utmost secrecy – an invasion of Russian territory, which is currently underway in the Kursk region. This is reported by The New York Times, referring to information from the Ukrainian military.
The Ukrainian military who participated in the offensive were informed about the operation only a day before it began, and senior officers were informed about it only three days later. The deputy commander of one of the brigades, lieutenant colonel Artem (surname withheld), told American journalists that the training was kept a secret even from many commanders.
The operation involved hiding armored vehicles in forests, disguising troop movements under the guise of exercises, and spending the night in abandoned houses in border villages. The goal was to quickly break through the border and use the local geography, including lakes and swamps, to limit the ability of Russian troops to counter the offensive.
After last year’s failure, when the offensive was expected and successfully repulsed by Russian troops in the south of Ukraine, this time the Ukrainian army achieved full operational surprise. The Russian command did not expect that Ukraine would attack Russian territory, which led to insufficient preparation of the defensive lines in the Kursk region.
At the same time, the secrecy of the operation affected Ukrainian civilians living along the border with Russia. They did not have the opportunity to warn about the offensive, and the evacuation had to be carried out in the conditions of a quick response to Russian shelling.
A representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine stated that the attack on Russian territory is “legal” and will stop only when Moscow agrees to a “just peace” and stops invading Ukraine.
