QUICK UKRAINE WAR: KURSK INVASION SUMMARY as at 1st September 2024

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The Ukrainians are now digging in. As I said, this invasion has a strict military purpose, and in my view it is to test out the idea of a quick attack and seizure of land, followed, by digging in and fighting the Russians and bleeding them while they "win slowly". The Russians did attack and send troops to fight the Ukrainians during the entire month. But the Ukrainians handled most of them easily and captured quite a lot of them. As the month has progressed, the Russians have pulled troops away from other areas, but NOT from the Donbas where the Russians are desperately trying to capture 2 towns before winter sets in. The Russians are close to capturing those town.s. The latest troops the Russians have pulled out are Wagner mercenaries in north Africa. So the REAL BATTLE OF KURSK is now beginning. But it basically took the Russians more than 3 weeks to reach a point where they have enough troops to stop Ukraine from attacking and expanding the Kursk pocket more. Therefore, at this time, it’s looking good for the Ukrainians that they should be able to hold the Russians down and keep them fighting, while retreating slowly, possibly for months. What I’ve not mentioned before is that even though the Ukrainians have 10,000-15,000 troops in Kursk, the Russians might need anything from 30,000 to perhaps 45,000 troops in order to push the Ukrainians back in a "slow victory". The key thing to watch is how many troops the Russians need, and how many Russian troops are killed and how long it takes for the Russians to get the Ukrainians out of their country. The Ukrainians have released video footage of their home-made rocket drones, which seem to be used for attacking Russian airfields. The Ukrainians still don’t have permission from America to use advanced weapons like ATACMS inside Russia. There is however talk that the Ukrainians are building their own ballistic missiles which they intend using inside Russia. The Ukrainians do have a whole weapons industry of their own which people forget about. They even build some home grown Ukrainian tanks which are based on a Russian design. If they can get their own home grown ballistic missiles, it could be a very important development. I think the Ukrainians are trying to fight the war in such a way that the Russians will have to remove more and more troops from inside Ukraine.

THIS IS UNLIKELY BECAUSE THE RUSSIANS WANT THE TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS WORTH OF GAS, ETC WHICH IS IN UKRAINE – THEY ALREADY CONTROL MUCH OF IT NOW ALREADY – BUT AS I SAID THAT IS THE REAL GOAL, AND IT MAY BE THAT PUTIN WILL RATHER BE WILLING TO LOSE RUSSIAN TERRITORY THAN GIVE UP ON THE TREMENDOUS WEALTH THAT LIES IN UKRAINE.