By neirfy @Adobe Stock
James Brooke of the New York Sun reports that the goal of the invading Ukrainians may be to create such insecurity that the Russian has to devote precious manpower to defend the border. Ukraine has no territorial claims on Russia. He writes:
Russians are re-learning that the pancake-flat steppe they share with Ukraine is a two-way street. For two and a half years, Russian tanks and armored personnel carriers rolled west, into Ukraine. Yesterday, Ukrainian tanks and armored vehicles rolled east, into Russia.
Apparently this is the first time that the Ukrainian Army has invaded Russia. Three Russian exile military groups based in Ukraine are not claiming participation in the incursion.
By nightfall, reports from the front indicated that the invaders advanced in two columns about 10 miles into Russia’s Kursk region. Russia claimed the “fighters” — as many as 300 — were from the Ukrainian Army’s 22nd Mechanized Brigade. Russia said they were backed by 11 tanks and more than 20 armored combat vehicles. […]
In Kursk, the region directly north of Belgorod, the goal of the invading Ukrainians may be similar: to create such insecurity that the Russian has to devote precious manpower to defend the border. Ukraine has no territorial claims on Russia.
For Russians, the news of fighting in Kursk stirs dark emotions. In the summer of 1943, the steppes 100 miles southeast of today’s fighting witnessed the largest tank battle in world history. Coming from the west, Nazi forces collided with the Soviet forces coming from the east. After six weeks of fighting, about 8,000 tanks were destroyed and as many as 1 million men were killed or wounded.
Read more here.
