ISW Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, August 20, 2024

Key Takeaways from the ISW:

• Ukrainian forces continued attacking throughout the Ukrainian salient in Kursk Oblast on August 20 and recently made additional advances.
• Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi displayed a map depicting the situation in Kursk Oblast on August 20, and ISW will use the boundaries of this map to update its assessment of maximalist claimed limits of Ukrainian advances in Kursk Oblast, consistent with ISW's mapping methodology for the Ukrainian incursion thus far.
• Russian authorities have reportedly re-deployed Russian units from the Chasiv Yar direction to Kursk Oblast amid efforts to address the ongoing Ukrainian incursion into Kursk Oblast with Russian forces previously in the area and re-deployments from lower priority sectors of the frontline in Ukraine.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin visited the site of the 2004 Beslan school siege on August 20, likely in an effort to link the Russian "counterterrorism" response to the Ukrainian operation in Kursk Oblast to a "successful" Russian counterterrorism operation in the early 2000s.
• Russian forces recently advanced near Toretsk, Pokrovsk, and Donetsk City.
• Russian federal subjects (regions) continue to increase monetary incentives for signing Russian military contracts in order to bolster Russia's force generation efforts.

Authors: Riley Bailey, Christina Harward, Angelica Evans, Grace Mappes, Davit Gasparyan, and Frederick W. Kagan.

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