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By David French
Opinion columnist
Here’s one way to think about the importance of the news that floods our lives: what news will they still be communicating 50 years from now?Are there any that you are going to communicate within 100?
The answer is yes. There is no doubt that historians will discuss the war between Russia and Ukraine in a hundred years. This is a bloody fight between two complex nations in Europe that has immense strategic implications for the United States (and the world). That adjusts the nature of warfare – with its heavy use of drones and other new technologies – and may simply adjust the global balance of power, especially if Western will fails and Russia overwhelms Ukraine.
And now, after months of dark and discouraging news from the frontlines, Ukraine has taken the lead. A gigantic Ukrainian force surprised and penetrated the Russian border near Kursk, a domain that was the scene of one of the most vital battles of World War II. This engagement claimed a total of nearly a million casualties and definitively entrusted the strategic initiative to the Soviet Red Army.
This Battle of Kursk is much smaller. Thousands of Ukrainian troops have gone miles deep into Russian territory. The headlines are gripping and social media is full of photographs of the attack on Ukraine, so I wanted to take a closer look.
How big is the Ukrainian attack? Is this a potentially decisive blow that could simply turn the tide of the war in Ukraine’s favor, or is it a gamble that will end up costing Ukraine dearly? What is the true scenario on the ground? In an attempt to answer those and other questions, I spoke to several Army analysts, and their conclusions (with some slight variations) were remarkably similar.
Here are my key takeaways from those conversations.
Don’t call the attack on Ukraine an “invasion. ” The Russian attacks on Ukraine in 2014 and 2022 were full-fledged invasions, to seize, detain and even annex Ukrainian territory. Ukraine has no permanent projects on sovereign Russian territory.
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