Notes and Essays -- John Brown

Kyiv’s advances into Russia buoyed morale, but Moscow is biting off new chunks of Ukraine in the east. A Ukrainian drone unit commander, right, stands in Ukrainian-held territory in Russia's Kursk region on Aug. 18. (Ed Ram for The Washington Post) By Siobhán O'Grady, Tetiana Burianova and Serhiy Morgunov, The Washington Post , August 31, 2024 at 4:06 a.m. EDT; see also  SUMY, Ukraine — More than three weeks into the plan by Ukraine’s military chief to turn the tide of the war by sending troops into Russia, much looks as if it’s proceeding as intended — except that Russians are still advancing inside Ukraine. Russia’s offensive continues even with hundreds of its soldiers in Ukrainian prisons and hundreds of square miles of its sovereign territory under Ukrainian control. If the bold plan by Kyiv’s Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky fails, Ukraine could lose many well-trained soldiers and much of the foreign equipment it has deployed to Kursk, as well as land in its own east, where Russian...

In testing Putin’s red lines, Kyiv is sparking a rediscovery of Cold War-era ideas about nuclear escalation Ukrainian servicemen operate a tank in the Sumy region, which borders the Kursk area of Russia where Kyiv’s troops have seized territory.   Roman PILIPEY/AFP By Daniel Michaels, The Wall Street Journal , Aug. 31, 2024 11:00 pm ET  Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk isn’t just a brash bid to upend Russia’s invasion. It also marks the first time that a declared nuclear power has  faced invasion and occupation  by another country.   For decades, nuclear-escalation theory has presumed that countries with atomic weapons were largely immune from attack because an aggressor risked triggering armageddon. Relatively small states including Israel, Iran, North Korea and Libya have pursued nuclear arms in part to deter attacks by larger, better-armed adversaries. Nuclear powers have scuffled: India has had  border skirmishes  with China and Pakistan. Palestinian...