European publication POLITICO reports that Russia has withdrawn some troops from southern Ukraine and returned to its own territory to try to repel a growing incursion by Kiev’s forces. The information comes from a Ukrainian official.
Ukraine’s ongoing surprise attack has sparked outrage in Moscow, where President Vladimir Putin expressed anger after Kiev seized dozens of settlements and huge swathes of territory in the Kursk and Belgorod regions of southern Russia. “Russia has relocated some of its units from the Zaporizhia and Kherson regions of southern Ukraine,” Dmytro Likhovy, a spokesman for the Ukrainian military, told POLITICO. The Kremlin initially attacked the Zaporizhia and Kherson regions of southern Ukraine in the early days of Putin’s full-scale invasion in early 2022. POLITICO could not independently confirm how many Russian troops had been redeployed back across the border, although Likhovy said it was a “relatively small” number of units.
Countering Ukrainian gains
To try to counter Ukrainian gains, Russian troops continued their offensive in Pokrovsk and elsewhere in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, according to the Ukrainian military’s General Staff, in one of the hottest spots on the war front where Russia is gaining ground. But Likhovy added on Ukrainian television that Russia had redeployed personnel to “other directions, including Kursk.” In a tense meeting in Russia on Monday, local officials described to an irritated Putin how Ukrainian forces had overrun the few defenses in the south since last week, prompting the mass evacuation of nearly 200,000 people. As Ukraine seized territory, Russian commanders initially played down the assault, insisting the situation was under control. But more than a week later, Ukraine now controls at least 1,000 square kilometers of Russian territory.
The incursion has boosted morale in Ukraine
The incursion has boosted morale in Ukraine, which has been reeling from Putin’s full-scale invasion for two and a half years, and has given a boost to Western allies who want to see Kiev tilt the battlefield in its favor, POLITICO reports. In Moscow on Monday, a Putin ally accused the Russian military of being unprepared to repel the Ukrainian attack, adding that Russian border troops were the last to receive information about the ongoing Ukrainian offensive, leaving them little time to act. But while they withdrew some units to the Kursk region, Russian forces have been actively attacking and initiating fighting across the war front in Ukraine, including in the south, where the troops were withdrawn. “However, the Russians have accumulated a large number of personnel, especially in the Zaporizhia region, and the number of units they are redeploying is relatively small,” Likhovi told Ukrainian television. And indeed, they launched several attacks on the Kherson region on the night they withdrew some forces. “We still have to understand whether this is a smokescreen,” Likhovi added.
Throwing the Cat
Russian leader Vladimir Putin is trying to portray himself as an efficient and competent manager of the situation along the Russian-Ukrainian border and shift responsibility for the incursion of Ukrainian armed forces to other Russian government and military officials. ,,Russian leader Vladimir Putin continues to portray himself as an efficient and competent manager of the situation along the Russian-Ukrainian border and shift responsibility for the current challenges in responding to the Ukrainian incursion into the area to other Russian military and government officials,” according to ISW. On August 12, Putin convened a high-level meeting of Russian military leaders, security officials, and representatives of federal and regional authorities to address ongoing developments in the Belgorod, Bryansk, and Kursk regions. During the session, Putin assigned specific tasks to the military and security forces in the Kursk region and expressed an opinion on the political implications of Ukraine’s actions on Russian territory. Putin has censured Alexei Smirnov, the acting governor of the Kursk region, for exceeding his authority by discussing matters that Putin considers the sole responsibility of the Russian Defense Ministry. He has asked Smirnov to focus exclusively on the region’s socio-economic affairs.