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By David French
Opinion columnist
Here’s a moment to think about the importance of the reports that flood our lives: what reports will historians still be reporting on in 50 years’ time?Are there any that you will communicate about in 100?
The answer is yes. There is no doubt that historians will discuss the war between Russia and Ukraine in a hundred years. This is a bloody fight between two complex nations in Europe that has immense strategic implications for the United States (and the world). That adjusts the nature of warfare – with its heavy use of drones and other new technologies – and may simply adjust the global balance of power, especially if Western will fails and Russia overwhelms Ukraine.
And now, after months of dark and discouraging news from the frontlines, Ukraine has taken the lead. A gigantic Ukrainian force surprised and penetrated the Russian border near Kursk, a region that was the scene of one of the most significant battles of World War II. This confrontation claimed a total of about one million victims and definitively passed the strategic initiative to the Soviet Red Army.
This Battle of Kursk is much smaller. Thousands of Ukrainian troops have gone miles deep into Russian territory. The headlines are gripping and social media is full of photographs of the attack on Ukraine, so I wanted to take a closer look.
Is this a potentially decisive blow that could simply replace the course of the war in Ukraine’s favor, or is it a gamble that will end up costing Ukraine dearly?What is the real scenario on the ground? In an attempt to answer these and other questions, I spoke to several army analysts and their conclusions (with some slight variations) were remarkably similar.
Here are my key takeaways from those conversations.
Call the attack on Ukraine an “invasion. ” The Russian attacks on Ukraine in 2014 and 2022 were real invasions, decisions to seize, detain and even annex Ukrainian territory. Ukraine has no permanent plans on sovereign Russian territory.
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