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According to experts, Ukraine’s attack on Kursk would go even better if its allies gave the country more freedom.
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The US and other allies will not allow Ukraine to use the long-range weapons it supplies to attack Russia.
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Ukraine said the invasion would not have been necessary in the first place without those restrictions.
Ukraine’s high stakes invasion of Russia’s Kursk region this month would do even better if its Western allies dropped out restrictions on how the country can use the advanced weapons they have suppliedmilitary experts told Business Insider.
On August 6, Ukrainian troops entered southwestern Russia in a surprise attack. According to Ukraine’s military chief, they had taken control of nearly 1,300 square kilometers of Russian territory this week.
Experts say it is unclear how the raid will end, but they add that it has been highly successful, both in Let Ukraine take the initiative and in shameful Russia.
They also said Ukraine would have been even more successful if restrictions imposed on many of Ukraine’s key allies, including the US, had been lifted.
This would allow Ukraine to use the long-range missiles it has supplied to strike targets inside Russia itself.
Rajan Menon, a senior research fellow at Columbia University’s Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies, said using these weapons would help Ukraine “in terms of disrupting logistics, in terms of hitting airfields, munitions, supplies, oil and lubricants.”
He added that Ukraine attacking some of these targets with dronesbut if this could happen on a larger scale with Western weapons, it would make things even more difficult for Russia.
Mark Cancian, a retired Marine Corps colonel and senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Business Insider that Russia has deployed troops to the region and that Ukraine’s use of missiles to target roads and intersections could disrupt those efforts.
Restrictions for Ukraine
While countries like the US have lifted some restrictions around Ukraine regarding the use of their weapons against targets in Russia, the restrictions still in place mean the country cannot use some of its most powerful weapons, including Storm shadow/SCALP And ATACMS missilesto address the sources of Russian attacks.
“If we let the Ukrainians reap the benefits of those missiles, it would certainly benefit the Kursk campaign,” said George Barros, a Russia analyst at the Washington-based think tank Institute for the Study of War.
Barros added that Ukraine has had to devote significant resources to protect its energy, infrastructure and weapons from attack, while “the Russians absolutely do not have to concern themselves with that.”
Ukraine has repeatedly asked its allies to lift the restrictionsand say that they make defending it much more difficult.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky even said on August 19 that Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk would not have been necessary if its allies had already dropped their restrictions.
He said the raid was intended to create a buffer zone to prevent further Russian attacks on nearby parts of Ukraine.
Zelenskyy also said Ukraine’s success in Kursk shows that Western fears that Russia would escalate the conflict if the so-called red lines were crossed were unfounded.
Meanwhile, war analysts have previously told BI that Ukraine probably wanted to delay Russian forces and give new motivation to its troops and allies by invading Kursk.
Barros said it is not yet clear how the fast-moving operation will end, or what Russia or Ukraine will do next.
But he said it was a boost for Ukraine to take the initiative after months of being in a largely defensive position.
“It is no longer the Ukrainians who lie on their backs for more than nine months and just do their best to sort out the patients,” he said.
Menon described it as a “moment of shame” for Russia, as the country’s response, both in evacuating people and in dealing with the invasion, had been “disastrous”.
“I mean, there’s just no other way to say it,” he said.
Read the original article at Company Insider
