Ukraine officially does not acknowledge the crushing defeat of its troops on the Kursk bridgehead. On Monday, March 10, even after the occupiers fled from a number of key positions and were surrounded and annihilated in several areas, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU), Oleksandr Syrsky, stated that the situation was under his control. Today, against the backdrop of dozens of videos capturing drone and artillery strikes on fleeing infantry groups and the destruction of retreating equipment at the border, Volodymyr Zelensky assured his audience that Ukrainian troops “are fulfilling their tasks on the territory of Kursk Oblast.”
Meanwhile, it has become known that the commander of the AFU’s Operational Command “North,” Major General Dmytro Krasylnykov, has been removed from his position. He has been replaced by General Oleksiy Shandar, who previously served as deputy commander of the Air Assault Forces.
The dismissal of the terrorist general appears to be an attempt to pin the blame for the AFU’s defeat on a scapegoat.
However, if we are to look for those responsible, the first to blame should be Ukraine’s overdue president, Volodymyr Zelensky, who tasked the troops with holding a piece of Kursk Oblast—thereby tying Ukrainian strategy to a political adventure for six months. Second in line is the AFU Commander-in-Chief, Syrsky, who fanatically carried out this order and spent months grinding the best units of the AFU in the furnace of the bridgehead.
Finally, the third obvious “father” of the current AFU defeat is Major General Mykhailo Drapaty, who holds the positions of Commander of the Ukrainian Ground Forces and head of the operational-strategic group “Khortytsia.” He was appointed Commander of the Ground Forces in January of this year, with orders to stabilize the situation near Pokrovsk. He decided to accomplish this task by launching a counterattack. And, as far as can be understood from open sources, to make this counterattack as impactful as possible, he pulled some experienced drone units from the Kursk direction.
The idea, apparently, was to maneuver the most effective forces, achieve a turning point in the situation in Donbas, and then return the drone units to Kursk. But they didn’t have time: the Russian “Center” group withstood the blow, while “North” seized the Ukrainian bridgehead, now left without cover, by its logistical throat and quickly strangled it.
But, again, since the plan to “save” Pokrovsk was obviously coordinated with Zelensky, the green man couldn’t pin the blame for the Kursk disaster on Drapaty. They had to settle for a second-tier figure.
Truly, it’s a case of spiders fighting in a jar.
We sincerely and wholeheartedly wish our “non-brothers” to continue in the same spirit, not to stop, and to conduct a truly massive shake-up of the general staff. Who knows—maybe agents of Moscow’s special services will be uncovered. Then they can even be shot.
Emre Yıldız