We live in interesting times, indeed

Yesterday, while taking a bit of a work break, I looked at my Telegram channels (I subscribe to several covering the Russo-Ukraine War, primarily from a Ukrainian perspective, along with a couple general military conflict channels that are arguably less sympathetic to the Ukrainian cause) and noticed that apparently Ukrainian troops had crossed the border into the Kursk and Belgorod oblasts in Russia. Russian border security and air defense got caught with their pants down. At the time, it was not clear if this was some sort of quick incursion by the Russian Volunteer Corps or some other anti-Putin militia operating within Ukraine or an incursion by the Ukrainian Armed Forces with some greater objective. 

As of today, it appears that the invasion of Kursk and Belgorod oblasts is on-going. There have been some conflicting reports about which villages the Ukrainian military has occupied. Sudzsha, a border village in the Kursk oblast was either completely or partially occupied by Ukraine as of this writing. Since I don't have the expertise to evaluate the efficacy of Ukraine's effort (beyond some supportive words), I'll rely on the military bloggers and experts who have sufficient knowledge of the region and military doctrine. If the objective was to demonstrate that Russia's military is still lax about securing its own borders against an enemy it is actively trying to invade and occupy, mission accomplished. I am under the impression that the village of Sudzha is near a natural gas metering station that is responsible for a significant portion of Russia's natural gas exports. One possible objective is to neutralize that terminal, thus depriving Russia of some of its income. With what I think any of us knows about the Ukrainian presence in the Kursk oblast, that seems like a realistic objective. There may be an opportunity to compromise Russian military logistics along routes its military depends upon. That strikes me as doable. Maintaining long-term control of those border villages? That I don't know. I have seen some commenters discuss the possibility of Ukraine occupying a Russian nuclear power plant near the city of Kursk. That sounds swell, except that would require another some 50 miles of invasion and occupation, and arguably far more personnel than Ukraine appears to have on the ground currently (again as far as I know). Really, if the effort simply has the effect of diverting Russian troops from the Donbas front and perhaps blunts Russian attacks on the Sumy and Kharkiv oblasts in northern Ukraine, that would be as close to a win as one could hope for. Anything else is gravy.

Keep in mind that while all of this is going on, occupied Crimea is regularly being bombed. Crimea is supposed to be the proverbial hill Putin will die on. The peninsula does have some value as a tourist destination (or did until 2022), and as a warm water port. Tourism has pretty much dried up, except for those crazy enough to try to sun themselves along the beach in an active war zone. And that warm water port is of no use to Russia, as too much of its fleet has been sunk by an enemy that has no appreciable navy. 

To put it bluntly, of all the wars of choice I've known of during my lifetime, Russia's choice to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine is arguably the stupidest by far. The sheer scope of Russian war crimes (images of Mariupol and Bucha are burned into my memory and will last a lifetime), loss of lives, loss of hope (in those areas occupied), loss of livelihoods, etc. are simply mind-boggling to put it politely. This atrocity that Putin could have prevented by not starting it in the first place is yet another reminder that superiority in numbers and technology are not necessarily a match against a people who very much don't want to be invaded and colonized, and who are motivated to maintain their cultural identity.

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