01 Dec: Last Straw. Russian Soldiers Give Up. - Reporting from Ukraine

Today there is interesting news from the Kursk direction.

Here, Russian forces are throwing everyone available, even wounded personnel, in a desperate attempt to win back the whole Kursk region from the Ukrainians by mid-January. At the same time, Ukrainian soldiers are holding their defense lines and are refusing to be pushed out by adjusting on time with all developments of the dynamic battlefield.

Facing pressure to secure favorable negotiation terms before Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20, 2025, Vladimir Putin has ordered relentless assaults to reclaim the entire Kursk region, aiming to ensure no Russian territory remains under Ukrainian control and to bolster his domestic and international standing ahead of anticipated peace talks.

Due to these orders, the Russian military continues to sustain heavy losses while attempting to retake territory, demonstrating a strategy that appears both desperate and poorly calculated. Despite repeated failures, Russian forces persist in their offensives, deploying waves of personnel and equipment against the cleverly structured Ukrainian defense. The result was a predictable increase in casualties, which prompted Russian commanders to throw wounded soldiers, before they had been completely healed, back to the frontlines due to a dire shortage of skilled personnel.

On top of that, the rapidly deteriorating weather has put the Russian offensive to a complete halt. Russian soldiers are reporting that they are losing their tanks and armored vehicles before they even get close to the frontline because they get stuck in mud. Many of these vehicles simply cannot be evacuated and are finished off by the Ukrainian kamikaze drone before the weather gives Russians any chance to try and evacuate their tanks. Soldiers struggle to navigate the mud, losing cohesion and becoming easy targets, further degrading Russian operational capacity in these increasingly unforgiving conditions.

One Ukrainian soldier commented that the Russians continue to bet on achieving results with the same approach of frontal attacks even though it is hardly yielding any results. His statement is confirmed by a geolocated video from Zeleny Shlyah, released by the Ukrainian 36th Marine Brigade. It shows a Russian mechanized assault aimed at breaking through the Ukrainian defense and advancing the stalled offensive in the region. Two armored vehicles attempt to push forward but are swiftly destroyed by Javelin anti-tank guided missiles. The remaining troops, trying to secure nearby trenches, are bombarded by drones and eliminated in close combat, turning the assault into a complete disaster. Such failures make the Russians seriously concerned about the situation, realizing that no matter what Putin demands, they won’t be able to reclaim the territory in Kursk anytime soon.

The situation has become so dire that Russian soldiers have begun recording videos urging their families never to join the army, warning that doing so would mean certain death. These harsh messages, discovered by Ukrainians on the phones of fallen Russian troops, reveal the desperation of those who sent these recordings to their relatives just before being forced again into suicidal assaults.

Overall, the culmination of several key factors has created a scenario where Russian attempts to retake the Kursk region are met with increasingly high costs and diminishing returns. Rather than adjusting their tactics to account for the harsh realities on the ground, Russian commanders appear locked into a pattern of brute-force assaults, relying on sheer numbers to compensate for a lack of strategy. This approach not only exacerbates their losses but also highlights the limits of their operational effectiveness in the face of adverse weather and resilient opposition. The ongoing campaign in Kursk thus stands as a grim testament to the flaws in Russia's military strategy.