WILL KURSK CHANGE ANYTHING?

The Russians have now only 21 days to eradicate the Kursk salient - that’s the timeline Putin gave them. The Pokrovsk and other directional battles continue but Ukrainian resistance has stiffened considerably and the Russians are struggling.
The requirement they have themselves to eradicate Kursk by October 1st, if they fail would be internationally embarrassing but little more. Russians themselves seem numb to the whole scenario.
Ukraine is pining its hopes on the fact that Kursk will force redeployments from the centre to make Kursk happen for Russia. That would relieve pressure so much and give them some breathing space.
Yet so far there’s no sign of it happening.
More and more I’m hearing multiple reasons for the Kursk offensive and this latest one is now the one most often cited. It was always designed to get Russia to disengage elsewhere.
These multiple rationales for Kursk tell you it really didn’t have any real strategic objective and was an opportunistic effort to see what it could achieve. As of yet it hasn’t realistically achieved anything except land.
The Russians have created deadlines in the past to get things done. And blown past them without even pretending they had them in the first place. Why is this going to be any different?
Weather is the real enemy of the Russian advance and they know it. It cannot continue at any pace in mud. That’s what is really pushing them and that’s why they haven’t lost interest in the central front. What they have lost is the means of making it to Pokrovsk this year. And for that we should all be grateful. Russian manpower and equipment losses have exceeded their expectations and only Ukraine inflicting terrible losses on the enemy is the way to stop them.
Long may it continue.

The Analyst