The Kursk Race

RAFAEL POCH-DE-FELIU

There is a race going on in Kursk. The Ukrainians and NATO want to keep their territorial bargaining chip, while the Russians want to snatch it away before Trump takes office in order to further strengthen Moscow's negotiating position.

The latest steps of the escalation that we have just witnessed in Ukraine, the Western involvement in missile attacks on Russian territory and Moscow's response by launching for the first time, on November 21, an intermediate-range hypersonic missile called Oreshnik with multiple independently reentry vehicles (MIRVs), impossible to intercept and conventional payload, have a clear and concrete logic: it is a race to define the assets for a future negotiated solution to this war.

With the support of its Western sponsors, Ukraine launched a military operation in the Kursk region of Russia in August. This was not the first time that Ukraine and NATO had bombed Russian territory. Drones were launched against the Moscow Kremlin, strategic facilities such as early warning systems and air bases were bombed, and important infrastructure such as the Crimean bridge or the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, the latter in conquered Ukrainian territory. The incursion in Kursk took the Russian military by surprise and was disconcerting because it made no great military sense. It did not stop the slow but steady Russian military advance on the front line, nor did it seem sustainable given the growing disproportion in means and forces between the two sides. The Russians continued unperturbed, pounding the Ukrainian energy infrastructure and advancing in almost all sectors of the broad front. What was its point then?

President Zelensky explained in September that Kursk was aimed at forcing Russia to negotiate. Russia occupies 20% of Ukrainian territory and has no intention of giving it up. The Ukrainian military occupation of Russian territory in Kursk gave Kiev a trump card for future negotiations “territories for territories”. The problem is that in recent weeks Russia has regained almost half of the territory that Ukraine conquered in August in Kursk. And, according to Western military sources cited by The Wall Street Journal -Ukraine Clings to Shrinking Sliver of Russia, Expecting Trump to Push for Peace Talks – WSJ, The worst is yet to come, as the Russian army is about to launch a major offensive there. The forecasts cited by the newspaper are clearly gloomy: a platoon commander admits that it is becoming increasingly difficult to “motivate soldiers” who are fighting there in inferior conditions. Ukrainian military transmissions are very faulty because the system Starlink The Elon Musk-designed anti-tank missile system covering the whole of Ukraine does not work on Russian territory. “They will eventually kick us out,” said a battalion commander of the 47th Ukrainian brigade, as quoted by the newspaper.

There are less than two months left until the presidential transfer of power from Biden to Trump. In the decision to attack Russian territory with missiles there does not seem to be any trace of the Biden administration's interference with Trump's "peace goals."The military-industrial complex seems to want to ensure the start of World War III before my father has a chance to achieve peace and save lives.", wrote in a tweet the son of the incoming president, Donald Trump Jr. But Trump himself has maintained a significant silence. His future national security adviser, Michael Waltz, has made clear in his conversations with his outgoing counterpart, Jake Sullivan, that in order to reach a favorable negotiation, “deterrence must be maintained"And"continue the escalation". "Our adversaries who see (in the change of administration) an opportunity and think they can pit one administration against the other, they are wrong“Waltz said in an interview with Fox News.In this transition, we go hand in hand, we are one team."He added.

There is a race going on in Kursk. The Ukrainians and NATO want to keep their territorial bargaining chip, while the Russians want to snatch it away before Trump takes office in order to further strengthen Moscow's negotiating position.

The Kremlin has four objectives: 1. to expel Ukraine from the four regions it has annexed in order to take control of them completely; 2. to ensure that there are no NATO or Western peacekeepers on the resulting border; 3. to demilitarize Ukraine and restore the constitutional precept of neutrality in the Kiev constitution; and 4. to repeal anti-Russian laws. At the same time, this must be achieved without making the Western debacle blatantly obvious. This is particularly difficult, not so much with Washington – which is also – but with the European powers of NATO, whose stupidity and strategic recklessness exceed all reason.

The scenarios that are taking shape in Ukraine are already inseparable from the other wars and massacres in the Middle East, with the genocide in Gaza, the massacres in the West Bank, the war in Lebanon and what is being prepared against China in Asia. Everything is interconnected, as suggested by the “economy of violence” (saving in Ukraine to invest more in the Israeli disaster and the Chinese front) that the unpredictable Donald Trump. Yeltsin in Washington – Rafael Poch de Feliu.

Of course, the world has never been so close to a nuclear catastrophe since the Cuban missile crisis - which does not mean that such a catastrophe is inevitable. We do not know what the consequences will be if the current escalation of the war in Ukraine continues, because they are unpredictable, and things can easily get out of the control of those who make the decisions. But the mere doubts and uncertainties about this are too terrible to be complacent and continue playing Russian roulette.

Rafael Poch-de-Feliu He is a journalist. He has been a correspondent for 35 years, most of them in USSR/Russia and China. He also in Berlin and Paris. His work can be consulted here