Ukraine strikes back

 

 Ukraine strikes back

Ukrainian drones attacked several Russian bases early Wednesday, inflicting damage visible via satellite just a few hours later, officials in Kyiv said Wednesday. That includes two hangars at Borisoglebsk Air Base well away from the frontlines, and apparent evidence of a strike (but no damage) at Savasleika Air Base east of Moscow, the Associated Press reports using Planet Labs imagery.

 Other strikes allegedly occurred in Kursk City and Voronezh City, all with the intention of degrading Russia’s ability to carry out devastating glide bomb strikes inside Ukraine. One Ukrainian described the strikes as the largest of their kind since the start of the war.  
 
Those attacks also run in parallel to Ukraine’s ongoing incursion into Russia, which has slowed since it began last Tuesday, but it is still advancing through Kursk oblast, according to open-source mappers  using imagery from Ukrainian forces.

 One way to look at the incursion: “Ukraine seizes more land in a week than Russia managed in eight months,” as the UK’s Telegraph described the situation Wednesday.

  Developing: Russian forces are digging trenches and obstacles to slow Ukraine’s advance in Kursk. That includes ditches about 17 kilometers north across fields you can see in this satellite imagery taken Monday over Russia and shared online Wednesday by George Barros of the Institute for the Study of War in Washington.

 “Russian forces appear particularly concerned about major highways and are likely trying to preemptively safeguard important ground lines of communication (GLOCs) to inhibit Ukrainian maneuver, particularly along the E38 and 38K routes,” ISW wrote in its Wednesday evening assessment.

 Pentagon: “We didn't get any advanced notification” of Ukraine’s Kursk incursion last week, a senior defense official told Defense One’s Audrey Decker on Wednesday.

 “What the Ukrainians were able to do was operational security, and that is something that I think we should be giving credit for. It definitely surprised the Russians.”

 WH: “Putin and the Russians have had to make adjustments” because of Ukraine’s Kursk incursion, White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby told reporters Thursday. But the U.S. isn’t adjusting its approach toward Russia, he said. “We haven’t seen or heard anything that would cause us to change our own strategic deterrent posture or calculus,” said Kirby.

 The big question now: What comes next for Ukraine’s forces in occupied Russia? U.S. defense officials are “asking the Ukrainians what their real intent is, kind of long term, and how it plays into future negotiations,” the official told Decker. A bit more,