Zelenskiy takes risky gamble on Russian soil to regain the initiative in Ukraine war

Ukraine has done something exceptional: it has invaded the territory of a nuclear superpower. The country’s political leadership argues that the incursion of Ukrainian troops into Russian soil serves to demonstrate that Moscow is vulnerable and that Kyiv can take the initiative in the war. On the flip side, there is the fear of how Russian President Vladimir Putin might respond to the move.

On August 6, mechanized and assault units making up five to eight brigades — with a total force of between 6,000 and 15,000 soldiers, according to expert estimates — launched an operation that has allowed Ukraine to occupy more than 380 square miles of the Russian province of Kursk. The figure, provided by the commander of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Oleksandr Syrskyi, was reduced to 185 square miles by the authorities in Kursk.

There are few precedents in modern history of such a feat. Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, a territory of the United Kingdom, in 1982, suffering a traumatic defeat in a lightning war ordered by then-prime minister, Margaret Thatcher. There was also the brief skirmish between the Soviet Union and China in 1969, when the latter occupied the small island of Zhenbao, in the Ussuri River, which was partially under Soviet sovereignty. It’s unusual for a military power to be challenged, even more so if they have the deterrent capacity of the nuclear bomb.

“No country without an atom bomb could properly consider itself independent,” said French General Charles de Gaulle. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has put this maxim to the test by taking control of 28 Russian villages, according to Moscow. The war analysis group Deep State Map puts the number at 44. Zelenskiy said on Tuesday that 74 Russian villages under Ukrainian control.

An action that involves invading foreign territory can only be carried out with the president’s approval. “President Zelenskiy’s personal fingerprints are all over it. It’s been an open secret in Kyiv for many months that the president was pressing his military chiefs to launch a summer offensive,” Michael Clarke, a professor of defense studies at King’s College London, wrote in The Times on 10 August.

“Zelenskiy is desperate to reverse the narrative that Ukraine is losing its war,” Clarke added. “Zelenskiy is trying to find a way to halt or reverse that dynamic. This strategic military choice is very much his style: bold and risky. It’s certainly bold: Moscow hasn’t seen a meter of its own territory invaded by anybody since 1941. The images coming out of Kursk will shock the Russian public 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 War on the Rocks website on August 10 that the operation in Kursk is reminiscent — in terms of the weapons used, the element of surprise and the speed of the advance — of Ukraine’s 2022 counteroffensive 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 EL PAÍS: that Russian intelligence services have failed resoundingly, because it is unthinkable that a buildup of Ukrainian forces on the border would go undetected. “They say that Russian intelligence detected these forces, but the information on the situation given to General Valery Gerasimov [chief of the Russian General Staff] was not passed on to Putin,” said Romanenko.

The two researchers assume that, under normal circumstances, such an error should lead to the dismissal of Gerasimov or General Aleksandr Lapin, the commander in Kursk. The Carnegie Fund experts add that Lapin failed to fortify the defenses on the border, a tactic that — when applied on the front lines — has allowed Moscow to prevent the Ukrainian advance in the occupied areas.

Ukrainian Defense Ministry sources told The Times that Kyiv expects Russia to retaliate forcefully, perhaps by bombing Kyiv’s political district. In his recent TV appearances, Putin has appeared irritated. “The enemy will certainly receive a worthy response, and all the goals facing us will undoubtedly be achieved,” the Russian leader said on Monday.

Putin’s anger was focused on Kyiv’s allies, whom he has accused of waging a war against Russia with Ukraine as the spearhead. Ukrainian brigades have not prevented images of NATO armored infantry vehicles operating on Russian soil or U.S. Himars medium-range missiles from being published. Witnesses who spoke to EL PAÍS on the border between the Ukrainian provinces of Sumi and Kursk confirm they spotted the F-16 fighters recently delivered by NATO countries.

Last June, Ukraine’s Western partners authorized their weapons to be used on Russian soil, in the border regions from which the invader was acting against Ukrainian territory. After refusing this step for more than two years, the decision was taken in response to the Russian offensive last May against the northern city of Kharkiv. Despite this, both the United Kingdom and the United States continue to prohibit Ukraine from firing their long-range missiles into Russian territory.

Alexander Graef, a researcher at the Institute for the Study of Peace and Security Policy in Germany, told EL PAÍS that Ukraine’s allies are faced with a difficult dilemma: “Ukraine’s partners are under pressure: on the one hand, they may believe that an operation [like Kursk] can 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 officer and MP for the Holos party, told Espresso TV on Monday that the operation in Kursk was the result of Kyiv’s inability to stop the enemy from advancing on the city of Pokrovsk in Donetsk province and on the city of Kupiansk in Kharkiv province. “In the Kursk region, we have managed to impose our will on the enemy, forcing them to respond,” Kostenko said. “We must remember the thousands of kilometers of border where similar actions can be carried out. To counter such events, the enemy will need to mobilize or redeploy troops from other areas.”

Since spring, Russia has stepped up its advance toward 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 “somewhat reduced the intensity of assaults in eastern Ukraine.” A spokesperson 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 added that the Ukrainian army had also transferred forces from Donetsk for the assault on Russian territory.

Neither Romanenko nor Graef think Ukraine has 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,” said Graef. “On the other hand, if Ukrainian forces are driven out in the coming weeks, Putin can present the outcome as a success to the population.”

Ruslan Trand, a defense expert at the Atlantic Council, wrote on his blog De Re Militari on Monday that one way of strengthening Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk would be to bring in anti-Putin and pro-Kyiv Russian groups that have carried out two destabilization operations in Belgorod and Bryansk provinces since 2023.

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. But Graef does not believe this outcome is realistic, arguing it is highly unlikely that Ukraine will maintain its positions in enemy territory and that Russia “will never negotiate anything while its territory is occupied.” Graef does, however, think 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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