site.btaUkraine’s Incursion in Kursk Yet Another Example of Kyiv’s Effective Asymmetrical Warfare, Expert Says

The military operation of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) in the Kursk Region, which began on August 6, is the first time in history when a sovereign territory of a state with nuclear weapons has been occupied by force by another state. However, the more important thing is that this is yet another example of successful and effective implementation of asymmetrical warfare by Kyiv’s high command, Kamen Nevenkin, a Bulgarian expert in military history, said in an analysis for the Bulgarian National Television.

Nevenkin explained that asymmetrical warfare is when you avoid confronting the strengths of your belligerent when he is significantly stronger than you, while focusing your efforts on his weaknesses.

According to the expert, AFU’s action by air and water is a typical example of an asymmetrical military approach. The Ukrainians, for example, avoid directly confronting Putin's Black Sea Fleet simply because they have nothing to confront it with. Instead, they are methodically destroying the fleet in its ports, where it is poorly defended. Similarly, in the air conflict between the two countries, the outnumbered Ukrainian fighter jets do not desperately engage the Russian bombers to shoot them down, but Kiev's forces are attacking Russia’s air bases at every opportunity, thus not only damaging the aircraft while on the ground, but also depriving them of fuel, ammunition and repair shops by striking those facilities with drones. The asymmetric military strategy also has its application in land combat – the Russians are throwing all their forces into the Donbas Region, fighting tooth and nail for every inch of ground, while the AFU most surprisingly launch a powerful offensive where no one expects them. Thus, they force the aggressors to ease their pressure because the latter urgently need to transfer forces to the newly threatened area, Nevenkin said.

The expert in military history assumes that one of Kyiv's goals in Kursk was purely military - to distract the Russians and weaken their offensive in the Donbas by withdrawing troops from the front line and moving them to Kursk. If this was the case, Kyiv's idea worked, as since August 8 there has been a lowering of Russian military activity in the Kharkiv area, as well as in the Luhansk region, which are the frontline sections closest to the AFU surprise offensive, Nevenkin underscored. The second goal is undoubtedly political, he said. By invading Russia, the Ukrainian leadership seeks to awaken the ghost of Prigozhin and show how indifferent the leadership in Moscow is to the ordinary Russian’s suffering. Here, the AFU succeeded as well - thousands of Russians have fled the combat zone in panic, Nevenkin noted. The third goal of the incursion in Kursk is related to possible future peace talks. The AFU will fortify and defend the piece of Russian territory with all forces and means and use it as a bargaining chip when ceasefire talks begin, he argued.

In Nevenkin’s words, the Russian command has completely slept through the two-month buildup of the Ukrainian offensive, which took place just across the border. It also turned out that outside the battlefield in eastern Ukraine Moscow has absolutely no combat-capable troops. No less shocking to many was the ease with which the AFU crossed both of what were considered impregnable Russian lines of defense, on which over some RUB 170 billion have been spent in recent years.

In conclusion, what has happened in the Kursk Region is unlikely to bring the end of the war any closer, but it will certainly bring the end of regime of Putin a little closer, the expert said in his analysis.