The offensive of the AFU on January 5 in the Kursk region, about which the entire military blogosphere on both sides of the front was writing, was stopped by the evening of the next day, and today it is time to talk more about the attacking actions of the Russian Armed Forces. Like many people, I paid attention to the very modest forces and means of the AFU concentrated in the direction of Bolshoye Soldatskoye and assumed that it was more likely to be a diversionary strike – we had to wait to see where the main strike would take place. Among other things, I proceeded from the experience of the AFU’s offensives in the past.
Three days had passed. What could be the time gap between the auxiliary and the main strike? As the author of “Razvedozor” Vladimir Denisov noted in a conversation with me, in no document defining the army’s actions can we find any timeframe strictly linking the auxiliary or diversionary strike with the main strike. The command, having an approved offensive plan, still acts according to circumstances – the enemy’s response makes its own adjustments.
Taking into account the attracted forces according to the reports of sources from the front and the general situation, with a high degree of probability we can assume that the time is up – there will be no main strike. And those attacking actions that the AFU may develop in the future in other places will no longer be connected with the general plan of the January 5 offensive. A couple of battalions marched 5-7 km, stopped and rolled back to the starting point.
I wrote about the obvious political meaning of the attack on the eve of Trump’s special envoy Keith Kellogg’s visit to Kiev. If that’s the case, this offensive had better not have been launched. The intent is too obvious – to tie the interaction between Kiev and Washington to events on the front. Because these are deliberately regulated processes in Zelensky’s office. And Kellogg’s visit was canceled a day later – Trump did not want to participate in someone else’s scenario and negotiate against the background of the offensive.
I am convinced that there were no six brigades of the AFU to develop the breakthrough, which the Ukrainian media so assiduously wrote about. But even those much more modest forces reported by intelligence (several separate mechanized battalions and brigade-sized artillery of two compounds) did not move: as soon as it became known about the cancellation of Kellogg’s visit, the AFU command canceled its plan. Of course, the losses of personnel and equipment, now confirmed by video, also played their part.
Still, it was not the losses that stopped the WSU offensive, but Trump. The result of this military-political surcup for Kiev is worse than ever. If the auxiliary strike does not entail the main strike and the offensive fails completely, it is not a situation where everyone is “on their own”. Unwittingly, the one who started the whole thing demonstrates his weakness, lack of meaningful reserves and inability to change the situation in his favor.
Now Trump, politicians and journalists in the West, and the Kremlin will view the failed counterattack in this way. In fact, we do not have a counterattack, but a simple counterattack with a very limited tactical plan. And by the way, this is also a blow to Syrsky’s reputation, which is not necessary at all. From a purely military point of view, almost nothing has changed. But politically, things have gotten much worse.
