Ukraine has done something exceptional: it has invaded the territory of a nuclear superpower. The country’s political leadership argues that the incursion of its troops into Russian soil serves to demonstrate that Moscow is vulnerable and that kyiv can take the initiative in the war. The other side of the coin is the fear of the response that President Vladimir Putin might carry out.
Mechanized and assault units of five to eight brigades, with a total force of between 6,000 and 15,000 soldiers, according to expert estimates, launched an operation on August 6 that has allowed them to occupy more than 1,000 square kilometers of the Russian province of Kursk. The figure, provided by the commander of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Oleksander Sirski, was reduced to 480 square kilometers by the authorities in Kursk.
Precedents in contemporary history are exceptional. Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, a territory of the United Kingdom, in 1982, suffering a traumatic defeat in a lightning war ordered by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Another case was the brief skirmish between the Soviet Union and China in 1969, when the latter occupied the small island of Zhenbao, in the Ussuri River, then partially under Soviet sovereignty. Challenging a military power is unusual, but doing so against a state with the deterrent capacity of the nuclear bomb is even more surprising.
“No country without the atomic bomb can truly be considered independent.” These are the words of General Charles de Gaulle in 1968, as recorded in the book The shortest history of war. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has put this maxim to the test by seizing control of 28 Russian villages, according to Moscow. The war analysis group Deep State Map puts the number at at least 44. Zelensky said on Tuesday that the number of Russian villages under Ukrainian control now totals 74.
An action that involves invading foreign territory can only be carried out with the president’s approval. “Zelensky’s fingerprints can be identified throughout the operation. It was an open secret for months in kyiv that the president was pressuring his military chiefs to launch a summer offensive,” he wrote on August 10 in The TimesMichael Clarke, Professor of Defence Studies at King’s College London.
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“Zelensky is desperate to reverse the narrative that Ukraine is losing the war,” Clarke added, “he is trying to stop or reverse this dynamic. This military strategy is his style, bold and risky. It is certainly risky – Russia has not seen a foot of its territory invaded since 1941. The images coming out of Kursk will shock the Russian population and the effect may be difficult for the Kremlin to manage.”
Surprise and speed
Michael Kofman and Dara Massicot, researchers at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, noted on the web on August 10 War on the Rocks that the operation in Kursk recalls, due to the weapons used, the element of surprise and the speed of the advance, the counteroffensive of 2022 that liberated the Kharkiv province occupied by Russian troops.
Both experts agree with the assessment made by Igor Romanenko, a retired Ukrainian lieutenant general, for Morning Express: that the failure of the Russian intelligence services has been resounding, because it is unthinkable that a buildup of Ukrainian forces on the border would not be detected. “They say that Russian intelligence detected these forces, but the information about the situation that General Valeri Gerasimov had was not enough. [jefe del Estado Mayor ruso] was not elevated to Putin,” Romanenko explains,According to reports Lola Hierro.The two researchers assume that, under normal circumstances, such a mistake would lead to the dismissal of Gerasimov or General Aleksander Lapin, the commander in Kursk. The Carnegie Endowment experts add that Lapin failed to fortify the border defences, a tactic that, applied on the front lines, has allowed Moscow since 2023 to prevent the Ukrainian advance into the occupied zones.
Sources in the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense have warned through The Timeskyiv expects harsh Russian retaliation, including the possibility of bombing kyiv’s political district. Putin has appeared irritated in his televised appearances in recent days. “The enemy will surely receive the response it deserves, and all our objectives will undoubtedly be achieved,” the Russian president said on Monday.
Putin’s anger was focused on kyiv’s allies, whom he accused of waging a war against Russia with Ukraine as the spearhead. Ukrainian brigades have not prevented the publication of images of NATO armoured infantry vehicles operating on Russian soil, nor the action of US Himars medium-range missiles. Testimonies collected by Morning Express on the border between the Ukrainian provinces of Sumi and Kursk confirm the flight in the area of F-16 fighters recently delivered by countries of the Atlantic Alliance.
Last June, Ukraine’s Western partners authorized its weapons to be used on Russian soil, in the border regions from which the invader was acting against Ukrainian territory. After more than two years of veto, the decision was taken in response to the Russian offensive last May against the northern city of Kharkov. Despite this, both the United Kingdom and the United States continue to prohibit the firing of its long-range missiles on the map of Russia.
Alexander Graef, a researcher at the Institute for the Study of Peace and Security Policy in Germany, warned in statements to this newspaper that Ukraine’s allies are in a complex dilemma: “Ukraine’s partners are under pressure: on the one hand, they may believe that an operation [como la de Kursk] “It may serve to expel Russia from Ukraine, but on the other hand, they do not want the war to spread geographically.”
Stopping the Russian advance
Roman Kostenko, a well-known Ukrainian military man and deputy of the Holos party, explained to the media on Monday EspressoThe Kursk operation is the result of kyiv’s inability to stop the enemy from advancing on the towns of Pokrovsk in Donetsk province and Kupiansk in Kharkiv province. “In Kursk we have imposed our military actions on the enemy and now they are forced to do something,” Kostenko said. “Let us not forget that we share thousands of kilometres of border, where we can carry out similar actions and to prevent them, the enemy will have to mobilise or transfer troops to other directions.”
Russia has stepped up its pace since this spring in its progress toward storming Pokrovsk, one of Ukraine’s key defense towns in Donetsk province. The Center for Defense Strategies, a Ukrainian military think tank, said in a report Monday that Russia had already “slightly reduced the intensity of its attacks in eastern Ukraine.” A spokesman for the 32nd Separate Mechanized Brigade denied Tuesday that any Russian slowdown had been noticed in the Toretsk sector north of the city of Donetsk. Romanenko said the invader would most likely withdraw troops from the Kharkiv sector.
Kofman stressed that if Russia were to halt the advance towards Pokrovsk, it would be a great success for the Kursk operation, but this expert added that the Ukrainian army had also transferred forces from Donetsk for the assault on Russian territory.
Neither Romanenko nor Graef see Ukraine as having enough assets to hold on to Russian soil for long. “The longer Ukraine holds on to Russian territory, the more problematic the situation will be for President Putin,” says Graef. “On the other hand, if Ukrainian forces are driven out in the coming weeks, Putin can present the outcome as a success to his population.”
Ruslan Trand, a defense expert at the Atlantic Council, wrote on his blog on Monday Of Military Re that one option to reinforce the Ukrainian incursion in Kursk would be to incorporate the Russian groups opposed to Putin and loyal to kyiv that since 2023 have carried out two destabilization operations in the provinces of Belgorod and Bryansk.
Kofman believes that kyiv’s control of areas of Kursk could serve as a basis for future negotiations on a ceasefire and withdrawal of Russian troops. Graef does not see this vision as realistic because it is highly unlikely that Ukraine will maintain its positions in enemy territory and because Russia “will never negotiate anything while its territory is occupied.” Graef does believe that the continued Ukrainian attacks on Russian border areas “show that in this war there are vulnerabilities on both sides, which could encourage diplomatic dialogue.”
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