hotair.com By John Sexton
The official word so far is that no one really saw this coming, not Russia and not even the United States. Ukraine’s decision to invade Russia is looking like a high-risk gamble but so far it appears to be paying off.
After months of losing ground to Russia in brutal, grinding battles in Ukraine, Kyiv shifted tactics with a surprise attack into Russian territory this week that caught Moscow off guard and opened a new front in the 30-month war.
Ukrainian forces have punched through Russian border defenses and seized several settlements in fighting that was still raging on Thursday, according to Russian officials, a Ukrainian soldier and analysts. The attack triggered a state of emergency in one region in the west of Russia. Ukrainian armored columns were filmed moving along roads as far as six miles inside Russia…
The goal was to shift the fighting — and Russian soldiers and weaponry — onto Russian territory and ease the pressure of Moscow’s offensive in eastern Ukraine, a senior Ukrainian official said. He asked not to be cited by name, as Ukraine has not acknowledged its soldiers are fighting in Russia…
“They were not expecting us, and they fled wherever they could,” said a Ukrainian soldier who fought in the assault and who asked to be identified by only his first name, Oleksandr, in keeping with Ukrainian military protocol. His unit took prisoners and captured a tank, he said in a telephone interview.
Another possible goal here is to give the Ukrainians something to negotiate with. As it stands now, Russia has seized large areas of Ukrainian territory and any negotiation would probably begin with Putin’s demand that those areas remain permanently under Russian control. However, if Ukraine managed to seize some towns inside Russia they would then have something to offer in a swap deal.
The Kursk offensive has put new pressure on Putin as Russian civilians have had to be evacuated under the same type of bombardment Ukrainians have endured for more than two years…
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