David Axe reports:

On the sixth day of Ukraine’s advance into Kursk Oblast in southern Russia, there’s growing evidence the Ukrainian invasion corps—some or all of up to five 2,000-person brigades plus at least one 400-person independent battalion—plans to stay.

The Ukrainians are digging trenches. Anticipating static warfare along or near the existing front line, the Russians are digging in, too.

That both sides are fortifying their positions doesn’t mean the Ukrainians are done advancing. Nor does it mean the Russians can’t counterattack—and push the Ukrainians back to the border, 10 miles away.

But it does mean that stabilization of the front line—and a long-term Ukrainian occupation of part of Kursk—is on the table.

Russian military correspondent Aleksandr Kharchenko observed Ukrainian forces digging trenches in Kursk on Sunday. He described it as “the worst thing that can happen,” according to a translation of his missive by Estonian analyst War Translated.

Ukrainian sources have spotted industrial excavators at work on both sides of the front line.

“Once the enemy picks up shovels, in two days it will be just as difficult to take the forest stands as it was near Avdiivka” in eastern Ukraine, Kharchenko added. It took the Russian military six months to roll back Ukrainian defenses in Avdiivka—and cost it tens of thousands of casualties. [Continue reading…]