Russian Mil-Blogger's Thoughts On Kursk And The Bigger Picture

Given the recent developments on the battlefield (the Russian victory in Kursk) as well as in negotiations, this seems to be a good time to get some perspective on the war. I came across a twitter feed that provides a translation from a Russian Mil Blogger on a Telegram channel that offers what look like intelligent insights into both the final days of the Ukrainian incursion into Kursk as well as ways in which the warfare has developed.

One thing to be aware of, it appears to me from other reading that the Russians may have been allowing the Ukrainians to feed additional troops and equipment into the Kursk salient—content to progressively destroy these formations as they arrived. However, at a certain point the Russians decided to end it all. My guess is that that decision was dictated by Trump’s intervention with his ceasefire proposal—which the Russians knew was coming. Depending on the terms of Trump’s proposal, the Russians would have wanted to be as prepared militarily as possible, and that would mean eliminating any possibility that Kursk would be used as a bargaining chip.

To do that—eliminate the Kursk salient—the Russians did end up shifting resources from other sectors. That was probably from the Toretsk direction, where the Ukrainians have retaken some ground. From that we see one of the reasons why the war has continued for so long. The claim that the Russians have used “human wave” assaults is nonsense. To the contrary, despite their advantage in manpower, modern warfare—even on an industrial scale—is a far cry from, say, WW2. Russia has the world’s largest military in terms of manpower, but its few millions of troops are paltry when you consider the vast extent of territory they need to cover. Thus the need to shift resources for assaults on even what appear to be relatively small areas, in which a resource advantage must be established.

Going forward, the question will be: Will the Russians continue their offensive into Ukraine’s Sumy oblast—where they have already made some small incursions to encircle the Ukrainian forces that are attempting to retreat from Kursk—or will the additional resources that were brought to bear be shifted elsewhere? A continuation of the offensive into Sumy would possibly threaten Kiev and force a scrambling of Ukraine deployments.

Also note the stress on how total surveillance—provided by the US—changed the nature of the war. In other words, the war has lasted only because of American involvement. That fact undoubtedly contributes to the Russian determination to continue the war of attrition against US resources as much as possible.

Samuel Bendett @sambendett

1/ QUICK TAKE by a Russian mil blogger on retaking the Kursk region and Sudzha, and the role of UAVs and drones in "isolating the battlefield". The TG post is obviously subjective, so usual caveats apply - translation in this short thread below.

t.me

Русский инженер

Изоляция поля боя Пока большинство информационных каналов обсуждают то ли переговоры, то ли перемирие, то ли был котёл у Суджи, то ли хохлы подсматривают наши записи от 22го года про жесты доброй...

7:49 AM · Mar 13, 2025

"Our troops began moving towards the village of Novenkoye. And then video footage appeared from the Sumy-Sudzha highway, with a bunch of burnt (Ukr) equipment. Then the information field exploded with Operation Truba ... The heroic actions of our soldiers made it possible to significantly influence the resilience of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Thus, to summarize, it can be said that the Russian army has mastered a tactical technique of "isolating the battlefield" by modern means in modern conditions. With the help of drones, the supply of the Ukrainian Forces was cut off, and they had no options but to retreat. Moreover, de facto a cauldron was created for the Ukrainian Forces, which was closed not by living soldiers, but by robots, which sharply reduced our losses, did not allow Ukrainians to counterattack at the moment of the cauldron's closure, and it was possible to greatly thin out their battle formations during their escape, almost completely destroy their armored vehicles and transport.

This revolution was achieved due to the transition from quantity to quality of our drones, and all other supporting forces and means. That is, the concentration of strike assets, electronic warfare, reconnaissance, artillery, aviation, the coordination of their actions, made it possible to solve this equation, which we had been trying to solve since 2023. Which in turn made it possible to overcome the impasse of positional warfare. This is exactly what I have been writing about for a long time - there will be no remakes of Mariupol and Bakhmut, since then the war has changed a lot. After both armies ran into a new positional war, the question was who would be able to overcome this deadlock. And the deadlock was caused by the emergence of total reconnaissance and mass weapons, which made the concentration of large masses of equipment and personnel pointless.

Therefore, the way out was seen in the war of robots, and the ability to fight with them, to tie them to and reassemble all the other tactics in order to gain maneuver speed. Without idiotic cries about the need for mass mobilization, lamentations that Russia is at a dead end and is not able to reach Kyiv and Odessa in the coming years. The reality turned out to be different - instead of mass mobilization, it was necessary to learn how to interact, prepare drone operators, prepare industrial capacities for UAV production, study the enemy and look for new techniques. That is, we need to pump up our brains (study) and fight with robots, not meat (humans). And this revolution allows us to expect a repetition of similar situations now in other parts of the front.

So, the war has changed dramatically even during the past year. The Russians are increasingly confident and increasingly capable. While American total surveillance remains in place, American strike assets have been significantly attritted.