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Ukraine's cross-border Kursk incursion, which has resulted in dozens of towns and settlements being occupied in the Russian southern border region, has entered a third month.
It started on August 6th and appeared a shock to both Kremlin leadership and even many Western leaders. The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a hawkish think tank in Washington, DC, says that based on its mapping analysis the Ukrainian army has managed to hold on to about 300 square miles of territory at this point.
The border region was by all accounts very poorly defended, and it took a significant amount of time for Moscow to send reinforcements to begin pushing the Ukrainians back.
A commander of a Ukrainian battalion inside Kursk told CNN of the latest battlefield situation, "Russian advances are mostly happening on the flanks of our foothold."
"They keep trying to advance but the gains are incremental, somewhere they manage to take a street in the village," he continued. "But it goes both ways – we also counterattack and push them back."