On the 5th of August, 2024, the Ukrainian Army launched an invasion of Russian territory, sending thousands of troops across the border into the Kursk oblast. In an echo of history so loud it can only be intentional, this same battlefield is where the Red Army (with over 7 million Ukrainians in it’s ranks) dealt the decisive blow to the Nazis in 1943.
In what ended up being one of the largest battles ever fought, millions of soldiers and thousands of tanks clashed in the same lowlands and ridges that are seeing combat today. The total causalities in a month of fighting were anywhere from 1-3 million soldiers killed, captured and wounded. While Soviet losses were heavy, German losses were fatal. The Nazi Army Group Center was permanently destroyed and the Red Army regained the initiative after dealing a decisive blow to the Nazi invaders.
With the failure of Zitadelle we have suffered a decisive defeat. The armoured formations, reformed and re-equipped with so much effort, had lost heavily in both men and equipment and would now be unemployable for a long time to come. It was problematical whether they could be rehabilitated in time to defend the Eastern Front ... Needless to say the [Soviets] exploited their victory to the full. There were to be no more periods of quiet on the Eastern Front. From now on, the enemy was in undisputed possession of the initiative-General Heinz Guderian
The Nazis called their Operation Zitadelle (Citadel) and the Soviets called it the Kursk Strategic Offensive Operation, but history remembers it simply as the Battle of Kursk. Most historians consider the battle to be the turning point of WW2 in Europe.
In Zitadelle, 33 Nazi divisions, numbering about 800,000 soldiers, 3000 tanks and 10,000 guns, pushed into a bulge which had formed around the city of Kursk, stretching from Orel in the North to Belgorod in the south. Their goal was to push into the Soviet rear and encircle the grouping of Red Army troops stationed there. The Germans hoped to repeat the encirclement campaigns of 1941 which had destroyed millions of Soviet troops and brought them within miles of Moscow.
However, the Red Army would not make the same mistakes they had in Barbarossa. They were well prepared for this German assault, and went to great lengths to ensure that it fell where they wanted it to. Unbeknownst to the Germans, the Soviets had far more troops in the area than they expected. Their appearance of weakness was an intentional ploy to bait the Germans into attacking and over-extending themselves so they could be destroyed.
The Nazis believed that they were facing a Soviet force of equal or slightly greater size to their own, when the reality is they were outnumbered nearly 2:1. While German officers were concerned with the Soviet defensive works, they believed that their new Wunderwaffe, such as the Panther and Tiger heavy tanks and the Ferdinand heavy tank destroyer, would be sufficient to carry the day. The Tiger and Ferdinand’s armor were impenetrable in the frontal arc to any Soviet anti-tank gun in service at the time, which led the German general staff to believe they could overcome any Soviet force put in front of them.
As usual, the Nazis were wrong.
The Soviets had been working meticulously for months to fortify the area, using camouflage to conceal their movements and defensive works. By the time the battle was joined on July 5th, they had amassed a force of nearly 1.5 million soldiers, over 5,000 tanks and 25,000 artillery guns and mortars. Soviet defenses were laid out in 6 primary belts (3 to the north, 3 to the south) covering a depth of 80-90 miles, with reserve trenches stretching back nearly 300. The belts were comprised of self-supporting anti-tank positions consisting of dozens of dug-in guns and infantry anti-tank teams which could fire at any angle. If tanks tried to bypass the positions, they could be destroyed with accurate fire to their weak side armor.
Each belt was ordered to hold their positions until the Germans passed through, then retreat to the next position. All the while, the Nazis were slowed to a crawl and mauled by constant artillery fire, minefields, and obstacles. Against these foes, the heavy armor of German tanks turned into a liability instead of a strength.
Their extreme bulk made them very sluggish, unreliable and meant that they guzzled fuel at an unsustainable rate, while offering them no protection against howitzer shells, aerial attacks or the cheap and ubiquitous mines. Their heavy armor was concentrated around the front of the tank, while the tops and sides were still lightly armored and vulnerable.
All in all, around 1 million mines were laid in the Kursk salient in a nearly equal mix of anti-tank and anti-personnel. Soviet engineers were even equipped with trucks which allowed teams of men to lay minefields ahead of advancing tanks. Mines proved incredibly effective, before the Germans had even penetrated a single defensive line, half of their Ferdinand super-heavy tank destroyers had either broken down or been knocked out by mines.
In the end, the Nazis only managed to penetrate through 1 of the lines in the north and 2 in the south before withering Soviet fire and counter-attacks stripped away their combat power. As the Germans were faltering, Soviet reserves were introduced into the battle which allowed them to build up critical mass for a knockout blow. As soon as the attacks were halted, the Soviets launched a counter-attack, an operation which would end up being the largest tank battle ever fought.
The blow fell near Prokhorovka, Belgorod Oblast. There thousands of Soviet and German tanks clashed in a ferocious battle. After their own advance was stopped, the elite Nazi SS Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler and Totenkopf units took up advantageous positions at the mouth of a ravine, forcing Soviet tanks to advance in single file columns, greatly reducing their field of vision and making them sitting ducks for German tank guns. Despite it all, Soviet forces prevailed. Their losses were extreme, but their introduction of reserves meant they could sustain the losses, while the Germans could not.
When the dust settled, the Germans were exhausted and when the Soviets launched an offensive on August 12th, only half the German force remained. They were quickly swept from the field, leaving Army Group Center permanently degraded and the Red Army in sole possession of the strategic initiative. The Nazis would not attempt another large scale offensive again. The victory at Kursk marked a turning point in the war, from this point the Red Army would only grow stronger as the Nazis were ground into dust.
Now, 80 years later, the descendants of the Red Army and the Third Reich are fighting near Kursk again. Many of the same ravines and heights which saw combat in the first battle are again the sites of ferocious engagements. While many of the circumstances around this battle (particularly the scale) are much different, other aspects remain the same.
Ukrainian units are using the Soviet tactic of detached reconnaissance groups to sow chaos in the enemy rear, small groups of soldiers with light armor who are trained to bypass enemy strongpoints, striking instead at anything weaker than they are. If they encounter a heavy counter-attack, they withdraw. These raids have created a great deal of propaganda, with DRGs posing for pictures near road signs and monuments for their twitter followers, but they do not have the strength to actually hold territory. They could be stopped by minefields, however Russia is loathe to mine their own territory and therefore has to undertake the difficult task of containing the raids with firepower.
While some of these columns manage to retreat, many of them are being ambushed and destroyed. Video evidence exists of dozens of Ukrainian vehicles wiped out in single attacks, and this is just what was caught on film. Even pro-Ukrainian sources admit to losses so severe that it may cause the end of the Ukrainian army.
Because of this, The Ukrainian army has made initial successes taking the lightly defended border regions, most of which are manned by police or national guard units which are neither equipped nor trained to handle a mechanized assault. From there, the offensive has bogged down. As the Ukrainian army suffers grievous losses, it’s elite troops and most advanced weapons are being destroyed en masse at the Kursk front. Even the Challenger 2 has finally come out to fight, and once again the invincible wunderwaffe are burning in the fields of Russia.
The British long portrayed the fragile, overweight, unreliable and overpriced Challenger as invincible, crowing about how it’s armor was never penetrated by an enemy. Of course, they never bothered to mention that the “enemy” the British army fought were at best ill-equipped militias desperately resisting a foreign invasion and at worst innocent civilians who made the mistake of being born an Iraqi.
Now, when facing an enemy that can actually fight back, the vaunted Challenger is little more than a target practice for Russian drone pilots. $20,000 Lancet drones can destroy the $6 million dollar behemoth with a single hit, and there is still no evidence of the Challenger 2 destroying even a single enemy tank in Ukraine. Given it’s performance on a real battlefield against real soldiers, it’s no surprise that the British government placed heavy restrictions on their use.
Ukrainian forces are clearly suffering from the massive disparity in firepower. Ukrainian guns are operating under strict shell rations, with entire batteries given only 2-6 shells a day while the Russians fire freely. All across the fronts, irreplaceable western equipment is being destroyed en masse. Scarce Patriot air defense units are brought so close to the front they are being targeted with cluster artillery, and three of the vaunted HIMARS rocket artillery systems have been destroyed in a single day, likely depriving the UA of their artillery support on this suicide mission.
While the Ukrainian army posts videos of prisoners and small villages “captured” as evidence of it’s success, Russia has considerable reserves, while even Ukraine’s own allies admit that they do not. A few hundred border guards captured is hardly even noticeable for the Russian war machine, while every piece of western equipment lost in Kursk is lost permanently. In the case of the Challenger 2, the British cannot even produce ammo for the tank’s gun anymore, let alone the tanks themselves.
Meanwhile, Russian tank production has reached a level greater than any time since the end of the cold war. Despite Ukrainian propagandists claiming that Russia has lost more tanks than it ever had in service, Russian tanks continue to be omnipresent on the battlefield as Ukrainian forces are fighting from pickup trucks and Humvees. This would not be possible if the Russians did not have a robust tank manufacturing sector.
As Ukraine bleeds itself to death in Kursk, the frontline in the Donbass is collapsing. Russian troops have not been drawn away, just like before, the Nazis have seriously underestimated the amount of Russian reserves. By moving troops from Belarus and remobilizing former Wagner soldiers, Russia has thrown together a considerable mobile reserve and stopped Ukrainian advances dead through wildly superior firepower.
The initial goal of the Ukrainian attack was to capture the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant, which could be held ransom at planned negotiations in November. This has been thwarted, although it is likely that the Ukrainian army will attempt to attack the decommissioned Zaporozhe NPP as well. Now, the Ukrainian army must be content to dig in under constant shelling and try to hold out until the mud arrives in a few months. Even if they succeed, it will be at the cost of countless thousands of their lives.
While there is a lot of battle left to be fought, it seems that the Ukrainian army has risked everything they have left on one last, symbolic gamble. They could not resist a strike on the same field that tempted their ancestors, almost 80 years to the day after. Just as before, foreign tanks now rumble through the fields of Kursk, and just as before, they will remain there forever, trophies of a Russian victory.
What we're seeing is 100 times smaller in scale than the WWII battle of Kursk. The strategic significance is not in any way material, but rather that it is another crossing of a line, which kills off what shaky chance there was for renewed negotiations.
On the ground level, it lined up with a conclusion that both NATO military planners and Kiev must've made. That they can't accomplish anything playing defense in Donetsk. So far reasonable.
They managed to round up a couple brigades whose leading elements were still believers, and for them perhaps there was more enthusiasm to go out in an adventurous charge, vs waiting for a FAB or TOS in a trench. Behind those are going to be Kiev's usual filler troops, who just have to dig in, draw fire, and change the batteries in whatever remote controlled equipment they're given. The bulk of all these men, destined to be abandoned face down in the bushes, are in the second category.
For whatever reason, probably including mistakes by Russian military leadership assigned to that segment of border, the leading elements did achieve some success in the first days, and so the Ukrainians behind them were able to dig in. The overall casualty rate, which will still determine the length of the war, seems largely unchanged.
Damn, I love your writing. I used to praise the writing in the Wash Post back when they were still a news paper. But yours puts them to shame, especially in these days. God have mercy.