Russia Prioritizes Offensive in Donbass, Not Defense of Kursk Oblast - ISW
Date: 2024-08-16 Author: Кирило Загоруйко Categories: WAR
Russian troops continue a high-speed offensive in Donetsk Oblast, demonstrating that the Russian military command continues to prioritize offensives in eastern Ukraine, despite Ukraine's successful invasion of Kursk Oblast.
As analysts at the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW) note, Russian troops continue to carry out tactical encirclement of Ukrainian troops southeast of Pokrovsk. Also, according to ISW, Russian troops have likely captured Orlovka and Zhelannoye.
A spokesman for the Ukrainian Tavria Group of Forces, Captain Dmitry Likhovoy, said on August 15 that there have also been no significant changes in the grouping of Russian troops in southern Ukraine and that Russian troops are not reducing their offensive operations in this area.
"Russia has begun to redeploy some elements from Ukraine to respond to the situation in Kursk Oblast, but the types of units being redeployed and where they are being redeployed from are strong indicators that the Russian military command continues to prioritize offensive operations in eastern Ukraine," the analysts note.
For example, CNN reported that the Russian military command is not redeploying larger and better trained elements from Ukraine to Kursk Oblast, with one source stating that the lack of significant redeployment of Russian troops may be due to the Russian military command only beginning the process or not having enough forces to carry out the redeployment.
"ISW has not seen any open source reports of the Russian military command redeploying entire brigades from Ukraine to Kursk Oblast, but has seen reports of parts of Russian regiments being redeployed to the area," the analysis says.
According to ISW, the Russian military command is withdrawing some elements of Russian irregular formations from the Donetsk region to repel the Ukrainian invasion of the Kursk region, but will most likely be extremely reluctant to withdraw military units involved in combat operations from priority sectors in the Donetsk region due to fears of slowing the pace of Russian operations in these areas.
