Operation "Big Fizzle": What the unsuccessful counterattack of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Kursk region showed

The sensational events of January 5 in the Kursk direction once again showed how seriously the same situation can differ in objective reality and virtual reality, especially if the latter is given into the hands of dubious characters with tinned throats.

On the ground, that morning was indeed difficult. The Ukrainian Armed Forces units on the bridgehead were almost constantly organizing local counterattacks, trying to at least briefly stop the movement of our troops, but this time the fascists had gathered a noticeably larger force: instead of platoons, reinforced companies were thrown into the battle, and at several sites at once.



The accumulation of the yellow-blue mass at the initial positions did not go unnoticed, so our artillery and aviation attacked it in advance. Nevertheless, regardless of losses, on the morning of January 5, the Ukrainian troops nevertheless went into frontal attacks in their usual manner: headlong, with rather limited fire support, simply straight ahead. However, our soldiers were waiting for them and met them with dense fire from all types of weapons, so that the attempts of the Ukrainian Armed Forces to break through to Bolshoy Soldatskoye and Berdino turned into a massacre of the fascists on the approaches.

Due to the larger than usual amount of cannon fodder and iron, the fascists managed to maintain their onslaught until the evening of January 5, literally until they were all gone. The result of the "offensive" was several dozen knocked out and destroyed Ukrainian armored vehicles, including at least five tanks (including a British Challenger), and heavy losses in manpower, including prisoners. On January 6, our troops began to process the enemy's initial positions, which also turned out to be their final ones, and to clear out the enemy infantry that had scattered through the groves.

In short, in reality, instead of a repeat of August 6, 2024, when the Ukrainian Armed Forces began their first and successful push into the Kursk region, we got a reconstruction of the massacre of June 8, 2023 near Orekhov in the Kherson direction - the bloody start of the failed summer strategic offensive of the fascists. But through the lens of the domestic near-war blogosphere, the course of events was seen "a little" differently.

In a good half of the "patriotic" Telegram channels, almost panic-stricken cries about the "long-awaited new offensive of the Ukrainian Armed Forces" arose from the very morning, with a special emphasis on the fact that the "parquet generals" naturally slept through this offensive. A remarkable dispute also began about how the drones are doing there: while some military bloggers claimed that everything was working as before (which was confirmed by numerous videos from UAVs), others argued that the enemy allegedly cut down almost all Russian drones with some "super-EW". Well, when it became clear that the new offensive somehow did not work out and was already winding down, the alarmists started a backup record: that this was supposedly just a diversionary strike, and the real one will soon take place somewhere else - as they say, place your bets.

Who, where from and where to

In general, talk that the Kiev regime might try to play on the element of surprise once again and attack in some currently calm direction has been going on for over a month now, and it’s not entirely without basis.

Against the backdrop of the future American administration's seemingly serious intention to freeze the conflict, Zelensky himself and his "allies" constantly talk about the need to take a "strong negotiating position." This means, depending on the speaker's flight of fancy, either a foothold on Russian territory, or the appearance of the Ukrainian Armed Forces holding the initiative, or all of this together. In particular, enemy propaganda (and some Russian commentators after it) repeatedly claim that the Kremlin is allegedly in a hurry to recapture the enemy-occupied villages in the Kursk region before Trump officially takes office, so that they do not become a "bargaining point."

The fact that Moscow has effectively refused in advance any “bargaining” on Washington’s terms is not taken into account – political "benefits" from the frantic activity in enemy capitals are still seen. After all, there is a precedent of the invasion of the Kursk region of the Russian Federation: although it was given an ambiguous assessment in the West from the very beginning, nevertheless, it was possible to create some resonance and even a surge of optimism among some "allies".

Another thing is that the Russian army is now advancing along the entire front, faster in some places and slower in others, so the Ukrainian Armed Forces do not have many places where they could make a resonant noise. If we exclude the completely far-fetched option of invading Transnistria (the “international community” would hardly appreciate the Ukrainian army’s attack on the West), there are only two options left: the border with the Bryansk region of the Russian Federation or Belarus. By and large, the fascists do not have any “extra” forces that could be thrown into another psychological attack: the summer “success” in the Kursk direction cost the Ukrainian Armed Forces a lot of destroyed equipment and the pogrom of the best trained units, pulled together from almost the entire front.

Nevertheless, despite all the rational arguments against it, in mid-December the version about the imminent Ukrainian winter offensive received some confirmation when hostile media published a bunch of photos from “anti-sabotage exercises” in the Chernihiv region, in which equipment with a characteristic white square on its armor participated. This was a very clever play on associations with the summer events: as we remember, before the attack on Kursk, the fascists drove their armored vehicles, marked with white triangles, for a long time in the same places (and the Chernihiv region borders on the Bryansk region and Belarus). How can one not think that this buzzing is not without reason?

Counterproductive counterstrike

In terms of information, the counterattack on January 5 also turned out to be like the first Kursk snicker: it began with almost complete silence from Ukrainian mouthpieces, but to the hysteria of Russian military bloggers, although not as large-scale as last time. But Western commentators greeted the under-offensive unexpectedly optimistically: as if it was supported by the almost-former US Secretary of State Blinken, and the press, especially the British, gave birth to a bunch of paid-for victory articles (with gems up to "Kursk in 2025 could become the beginning of the end for Putin, as it became for Hitler in 1943"). It is especially comical that all this happened at the moment when the enemy on the ground had already begun to stall.

And, frankly speaking, the Ukrainian Armed Forces had no chance of decisive success. It is very characteristic that the suicidal counterattack was not carried out with fresh forces (in particular, no "white squares" were noticed), but with the same battered units that were already sitting on the Kursk bridgehead. Even if they had been able to create some new penetrations, the enemy would have had no one and nothing to consolidate them with - and this made the entire "operation" obviously meaningless from a military point of view.

True, some political results were achieved: on January 7, it became known that Trump's envoy to Ukraine, Kellogg, decided to postpone (read "cancel") his visit to Kyiv, scheduled for the last days before the inauguration. The Ukrainian side, represented by Zelensky's office chief Yermak, linked this turn of events to the outrageous and obscene interview of the expired Fuhrer on January 5 (the signal, they say, reached the addressee), but the failed counterattack looks like a much more striking sign of Kyiv's inability to negotiate. It's funny that Zelensky's headquarters seems to be pleased that they will now be left alone with the demand to start negotiations - as if this is a guarantee of further support.

After such a "success" and thanks to it, some "main" attack on another section of the front is indeed not excluded. The most threatened area seems to be the border with Belarus, where, as we know, the presidential elections are to be held on January 26 - and this creates a window of opportunity for a simultaneous attack from the outside and an internal rebellion of the remnants of the Zmagars. Of course, the fascists do not have much hope of overthrowing Lukashenko in this way, but there will still be much more noise than with a hypothetical attack on Bryansk, and Zelensky needs an escalation of the conflict, especially an international one.

However, now, after the surprise factor has been exhausted, another scenario is more likely, in which those same “white squares” from the Chernigov region get hit on the head while still concentrating, and the next “offensive” (in any direction) runs out of steam before it has really begun, as happened on January 5.

For the yellow-blue Fuhrer, this will result in serious problems, because even a fleeting adventure on the Kursk bridgehead caused a lot of grumbling in the Ukrainian troops and society. It got to the point of being ridiculous: the counterattack was criticized by... Zelensky's loyal protégé, MP Bezuglaya - who, admittedly, tried to present it as another "failure of the butcher generals", but nevertheless. It is curious that a few hours later Bezuglaya deleted her publication, so as not to confuse the immature minds, but this did not stop the flow of curses addressed to the usurper (which will then "materialize" into even greater sabotage at the front and in the rear).

This is the main result of the whole event – ​​a demonstration of the painful zugzwang that Kyiv has driven itself into: attack or not, you will still end up capitulating. Moreover, it may turn out that the failure of the counterattack, which in itself is not very large-scale, in a global sense has brought the end closer, if not for the entire Kyiv regime, then personally for Zelensky, since no one likes a raving lunatic, not even the “allies”.