The Kursk bombshell

At its best, high-cost victory. Once again, Russia’s southwestern Kursk area is a battlefield fraught with ominous omens. Ukraine has launched a cross-border offensive into Kursk—the first invasion of Russian territory since World War II.

Deafening was the initial silence from all concerned—Russia, Ukraine and its western allies. For the west, silence is better than defending Ukraine for violating an international border, a crime they accuse Russia of for invading Ukraine. Experts explained the incursion aimed to divert Russian forces away from the eastern battlefront where Ukrainian troops are failing and that staging a successful offensive bolsters flagging western support, inducing reluctant allies to supply more weapons.

Ukraine’s incursion appears to have caught Russia off-guard. President Vladimir Putin’s silence and his soldiers’absence from the Kursk battlefield revived memories of Russia’s “unsinkable”500-feet long nuclear submarine “Kursk”. In 2000, it sank in the Arctic with 118 trapped men on board. Even a day later, Putin was filmed partying and barbecuing in his Black Sea holiday villa. The slow and inept Russian rescue operation culminated with British and Norwegian divers eventually opening the hatch—to find no survivors.