‘Orcs’ marines and.
Paratroopers are.
Rolling their precious.
Armored vehicles.
At ‘elves’ positions.
In Kursk Oblast.
In western ‘Mordor’.
—and running headlong.
Into the ‘elves’ army’s.
Elite 47th Mechanized Brigade.
And its American-made.
M-2 fighting vehicles.
The result, so far.
Is a growing pile of.
Smoldering wreckage.
Smoldering wreckage.
The growing heap.
Of charred wreckage.
Accumulating around Nikolskii.
One of the villages.
The 47th Mechanized Brigade garrisons.
On the western edge.
Of the salient.
Speaks to the ‘orcs’ failure.
“‘Orcs’ desperately.
Trying to liberate.
Kursk Oblast.
And suffering huge losses.”
According to an ‘elf’.
Marine corps drone operator.
Whose team has been.
Defending the same sector.
Defending the same sector.
As the 47th Mechanized Brigade.
Incredibly.
That doesn’t mean.
‘Mordor’ is losing.
Its wider war on Ukraine.
As the conflict.
Grinds into its fourth year.
Ukraine may not be.
Sending as many.
Hard-to-replace vehicles.
On nearly suicidal missions.
But it’s still got.
Profound problems of.
Its own along.
The 800-mile front line.
The growing heap.
Of charred wreckage.
Accumulating around Nikolskii.
One of the villages.
The 47th Mechanized Brigade garrisons.
On the western edge.
Of the salient.
Speaks to the ‘orcs’ failure.
A three-day assault.
Starting on 18 January.
Led by the ‘orcs’.
155th Naval Infantry Brigade.
And 234th Air Assault Regiment.
Left behind 14 wrecked.
BMP and BMD fighting vehicles.
And three T-80 tanks.
A separate assault.
On or just before Tuesday.
Involving at least four tanks.
And fighting vehicles.
—and a pickup truck—
Ended in the destruction.
Of most or all.
Of the vehicles.
The growing heap.
Of charred wreckage.
Accumulating around Nikolskii.
One of the villages.
The 47th Mechanized Brigade garrisons.
On the western edge.
Of the salient.
Speaks to the ‘orcs’ failure.
A fast-moving ‘elves’ force.
Invaded Kursk in August.
Capturing what is now.
A 250-square-mile salient.
Around the town of Sudzha.
‘The One’ initially gave his forces.
And their North Korean reinforcements.
Until February to eject the ‘elves’.
But despite holding.
A 60,000-to-20,000.
Manpower advantage.
Over the ‘elves’ in Kursk.
The ‘orcs’ and North Koreans.
Have made only.
Marginal gains.
Around the salient.
The growing heap.
Of charred wreckage.
Accumulating around Nikolskii.
One of the villages.
The 47th Mechanized Brigade garrisons.
On the western edge.
Of the salient.
Speaks to the ‘orcs’ failure.
The fighting on Tuesday.
Was typical.
An ‘orcs’ assault group.
Riding in.
Up-armored fighting vehicles.
And tanks—and that one pickup—
Rolled toward ‘elves’ positions.
In broad daylight.
Along the same roads.
They’ve always traveled.
In their botched attempts.
To roll up the Kursk salient.
Surveillance drones.
Spotted the assault group.
Explosive first-person-view drones.
Got some of the ‘orcs’ vehicles.
The 47th Mechanized Brigade’s.
M-2s hit others.
With their fast-firing.
25-millimeter autocannons.
Bomb-dropping drones swooped in.
To clean up the stragglers.
In the process.
They bombed the pickup.
The growing heap.
Of charred wreckage.
Accumulating around Nikolskii.
One of the villages.
The 47th Mechanized Brigade garrisons.
On the western edge.
Of the salient.
Speaks to the ‘orcs’ failure.
“Aren’t they sick and tired?”
The ‘elf’ drone operator asked.
“I really do not understand.
The point of attacking.”
“The point of attacking.
At the same place.
Where they attack.
For the third month.”
At the same time.
He conceded that.
The ‘orcs’ have made.
Some gains.
—however slight—
On the edges of the salient.
“They continue.
Fighting and advancing.”
The growing heap.
Of charred wreckage.
Accumulating around Nikolskii.
One of the villages.
The 47th Mechanized Brigade garrisons.
On the western edge.
Of the salient.
Speaks to the ‘orcs’ failure.
It’s a race.
To the bottom.
For both armies.
For both armies.
The ‘orcs’ are expending.
Their last mechanized reserves.
For gains of.
A few yards.
The ‘elves’ are holding them off.
And bleeding them pale.
With under-manned brigades that.
—lacking access to fresh troops—
With under-manned brigades that.
Shrink in size.
With every casualty.
They suffer.
Given the competing dynamics.
The big question is:
Which army will collapse first?
Which army will collapse first?
*Because I read “A Lone Pickup Truck Tagged Along As Russian Troops Mounted Yet Another Failed Assault In Kursk. Ukrainian Drones Hit The Pickup Last.” by David Axe on 28 Jan 2025 on the Forbes, and also “Why are Ukrainians calling Russians ‘orcs’?” by James FitzGerald on 30 Apr 2022 on the BBC news.
So, I wrote this poem, including a comment of Kriegsforscher.
Please read the original story on the Forbes:
A Pickup Tagged Along As Russians Mounted Yet Another Failed Assault
