KURSK SURPRISE: Ukraine Starts Digging in, Takes Tons of Prisoners

"Kursk Offensive" is too grand for Ukraine's shock invasion of Russian territory 10 days ago, but "Raid on Kursk" doesn't do it justice — so for now I'm going with "Kursk Surprise" because the Ukraine Army (UA) continues to do just that. Today's big news is that UA forces bagged just over 100 POWs in their biggest-ever one-day take to replenish "the exchange fund."

Kyiv claims that a Security Service unit operating in the Kursk region took 102 POWs "in a sprawling underground complex" that "had ample stocks of ammunition and supplies." Why that many men under those conditions surrendered to a smaller security unit remains a mystery.

It had to be a fluke, so don't read too much into it.

Is Kyiv's claim to have taken 102 POWs believable? Well...

I developed two rules of thumb for dealing with claims made by either Kyiv or Moscow. When Kyiv claims to have captured or killed X number of Russians, multiply X by 0.75 to get something closer to the actual number. If they claim 100, the truth is probably more like 75.

When Moscow claims to have captured or killed Y number of Ukrainians, multiply Y by 0.25 to get something closer to the actual number. For Moscow's claims, 100 will get you 25.

There's no rule of thumb for calculating the true number of losses Russia has taken, based on Moscow's claims. Those figures are more divorced from reality than Anna Nicole Smith on a valium and gin bender.

Some parts of the Kursk Surprise are going as expected, as the latest ISW estimates show:

Ukrainian outlet Suspilne reported on August 14 that its sources in the Ukrainian military stated that the tempo of Ukrainian advances in Kursk Oblast has slowed due to the increasing Russian resistance in the direction of Kursk City. Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces are gradually stabilizing the frontline in Kursk Oblast and that unspecified Russian reinforcements are arriving from unspecified areas and are establishing communications with Russian units already in the area.

The initial shock has worn off, Russian reinforcements are arriving and getting organized, and so those rapid advances have slowed quite a bit.

Other parts — and this is why I've stopped thinking of this action as a mere raid — are not going as expected.

“General Syrskyi reported on the completion of the liberation of the town of Sudzha from the Russian military. A Ukrainian military commandant’s office is being established there now,” said Volodymyr Zelenskiy, after receiving a briefing from the commander in chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, Oleksandr Syrskyi, on Thursday.

Sudzha is Gazprom's metering point for the natural gas pipeline into Western Europe. While Europe's dependence on Russian energy supplies is way down over the last two years, Sudzha is still a valuable piece of pipeline real estate.

And the UA is putting down roots there.

"Fascinating," as Spock would say with an arched eyebrow.

One last thing — a quick lesson on how to read (or not read) the news. When you see a headline like this one — "Putin facing revolt as Kremlin 'questions leadership' over humiliating Ukraine invasion" — take it with an entire salt lick.

First, because it comes from the UK Express, a fairly notorious tabloid. Second, the single source (!!!) for the screaming headline was Abbas Gallyamov, a Putin speechwriter from 2008-2012. Gallyamov was never involved in making policy and hasn't worked for Putin in a dozen years.

I hope this helps.

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