Ukraine fighting to hang on to Kursk

One of President Zelensky's boldest moves was to send troops over the border into the Kursk region of western Russia and grab territory. It looked initially like this would be a short-lived mission, just to cause Moscow maximum embarrassment. Well it did that all right, emphasised by the fact that Putin had to call on North Korea to help with soldiers to fill the gaps in his infantry strength to try and drive the Ukrainians away. So far, five months into the Kursk operation, Ukrainian troops are hanging on and keeping the Russian and North Korean troops at bay. It's a remarkable achievement and means that if or when Donald Trump has a session with Putin to try and bring the war in Ukraine to an end, Zelensky will have his Kursk card to play to force the Russian leader into territorial concessions in Ukraine itself. In the war in Ukraine Russia has been steadily gaining ground in the east. But as long as the Ukrainian forces in Kursk refuse to budge, Putin will have to take that on board when the territorial bargaining begins. Trump's special envoy on Ukraine and Russia, Lieutenant-General Keith Kellogg, has said he hopes to bring the war to an end within 100 days of Trump taking office. That is not what Trump wanted. He promised to have it all sorted out on his first day in office. That was always regarded as blarney by those who have been intimately in the war effort in bith Kyiv and Washington. However, it sounded good, especially during the election campaign. Now Kellogg has admitted it might take a little longer. But is even 100 days - ie sometime in May - realistic? It might be if the battle for Kursk still goes Ukraine's way. It looks like it will.