Ukrainian men carrying a dead Russian soldier in a body bag after finding him in the rubble of a destroyed Russian border post. Photo / David Guttenfelder, The New York Times
Ukrainian men carrying a dead Russian soldier in a body bag after finding him in the rubble of a destroyed Russian border post. Photo / David Guttenfelder, The New York Times
The incursion caught Russia by surprise and signified a shift in tactics for Kyiv after more than two years of war with Russia.
Ukraine pressed ahead with its offensive inside Russian territory Sunday, pushing toward more villages and towns nearly two weeks into the first significant foreign incursion in Russiasince World War II.
But even as the Ukrainian army was advancing in Russia’s western Kursk region, its troops were steadily losing ground on their own territory. The Russian military is now about 13km from the town of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine, according to open-source battlefield maps. The capture of Pokrovsk, a Ukrainian stronghold, would bring Russia one step closer to its long-held goal of capturing the entire Donetsk region.
That underscored the gamble Ukraine’s army took when it crossed into Russia: throwing its forces into a daring offensive that risked weakening its own positions on the eastern front.
Whether that strategy will prove advantageous remains to be seen, analysts say.
On the political front, the offensive has already had some success: Ukraine’s rapid advance has embarrassed Russia and has altered the narrative of a war in which Kyiv’s forces had been on the back foot for months.
Here’s what to know about Ukraine’s cross-border operation, which President Joe Biden said last week was creating a “real dilemma” for the Russian government.
What happened?
Ukrainian troops and armoured vehicles stormed into the Kursk region of western Russia on August 6, swiftly pushing through Russian defences and capturing several villages.
The assault, prepared in the utmost secrecy, opened a new front in the 30-month war and caught not only Russia off guard: some Ukrainian soldiers and US officials also said they lacked advance notice.
Analysts and Western officials estimate that Ukraine deployed about 1000 troops at the start of the incursion. But military analysts say that it has since poured more troops into the operation to try to hold and expand its positions.
How far into Russia have Ukrainian troops advanced?
General Oleksandr Syrskyi, Ukraine’s top commander, said last week that his army now controlled more than 80 Russian settlements in the Kursk region, including Sudzha, a town of 6000 residents. His claims could not be independently verified, although analysts say that Sudzha is highly likely to be under full Ukrainian control.
Ukraine’s advance in the Kursk region has slowed in recent days, according to open-source maps of the battlefield based on combat footage and satellite images, as Russia sends in more reinforcements. The Ukrainian army appears to be trying to dig in along the border area rather than pushing deeper into Russia.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy acknowledged that Saturday, saying: “Now we are reinforcing our positions. The foothold of our presence is getting stronger.”
Why is this significant?
Kyiv has regularly bombarded Russian oil refineries and airfields with drones since Moscow’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022. It has also helped stage two other ground attacks in Russia. Those, however, were smaller forays by Russian exile groups backed by the Ukrainian army, and they ended in quick retreats.
Until two weeks ago, Ukrainian forces had not counterattacked in Russia. The gains in Kursk are the quickest for Ukrainian forces since they reclaimed the Kherson region of their own country in November 2022.
How has Russia responded?
As Ukrainian forces pushed deeper into Russia, Moscow scrambled to shore up its defences, and Russian President Vladimir Putin convened his security services to coordinate a response. The Russian military said it was sending more troops and armoured vehicles to try to repel the attack, with Russian television broadcasting images of columns of military trucks.
An army recruiting poster in Kursk last week. Photo / Nanna Heitmann, The New York Times
Military analysts and US officials have said the Russian command had so far brought in reinforcements mainly from within Russia so as to not deplete its units on the Ukrainian battlefield, in what they described as a disorganised effort.
“Russia is still pulling together its reaction,” General Christopher G. Cavoli, Nato’s top military commander, said last week during a talk at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. He described the Russian response as having been “fairly slow and scattered” as authorities sorted out which military and security forces should take the lead.
And what about Putin?
The incursion has embarrassed Putin and his military establishment, prompting questions about Russia’s level of preparedness.
Russian evacuees from the border regions awaiting distribution of basic aid in the city of Kursk. Photo / Nanna Heitmann, The New York Times
Underscoring how the attack rattled Russia, Putin lashed out last week at the West in a tense televised meeting with his top officials. “The West is fighting us with the hands of the Ukrainians,” he said, repeating his frequent depiction of the war, which he started, as a proxy campaign against Russia by the West.
Ukraine’s incursion has brought the war into Russia like it never has before, and tens of thousands of civilians have evacuated the border area.
What is the goal of Ukraine’s incursion?
Analysts say that Ukraine’s offensive has two main aims: to draw Russian forces from the front lines in eastern Ukraine and to seize territory that could serve as a bargaining chip in future peace talks.
Mykhailo Podolyak, a top Ukrainian presidential adviser, said last week that Russia would be forced to the negotiating table only through suffering “significant tactical defeats”.
“In the Kursk region, we can clearly see how the military tool is being used objectively to persuade” Russia to enter “a fair negotiation process,” he wrote on social media.
The operation has offered a much-needed morale boost for Ukrainians, whose forces have been losing ground to Russian troops for months.
But military analysts have questioned whether Ukraine’s cross-border assault is worth the risk, given that Ukrainian forces are already stretched on the front lines of their own country.
How is it affecting the fight inside Ukraine?
Russian forces have been pummelling Ukrainian troops in the east even as Moscow races to respond to the incursion into Kursk, according to analysts, Western officials and Ukrainian soldiers.
Russia has begun to withdraw small numbers of troops from Ukraine, they said, to try to help repel the Ukrainians, but not enough to significantly affect the overall battlefield for now.
A soldier from the First Presidential Brigade of Ukraine’s National Guard in the Donbas region this month. Photo / Tyler Hicks, The New York Times
Senior US officials have said privately that they understood Ukraine’s need to change the narrative of the war but that they were sceptical that Ukraine could hold the territory long enough to force Russia to divert significant resources from the front lines in eastern and southern Ukraine.
While Ukraine’s allies have in the past been wary that Ukrainian incursions in Russia could escalate the war, the European Union’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell Fontelles, said last week that Ukraine had the bloc’s “full support”.
Ukraine has used some Western-supplied weapons in the Kursk operation. But so far, the United States and Britain, two of Ukraine’s closest allies, have said the incursion did not violate their policies.
What happens next?
As the Ukrainian offensive approaches its two-week mark, analysts say Ukraine has several options, each with its own challenges.
Ukrainian forces could try to keep pushing farther into Russia, but that will become harder as Russian reinforcements arrive and Ukraine’s supply lines are stretched.
They could keep digging into the territory they now hold and try to defend it, but that could expose fixed Ukrainian positions to potentially devastating Russian airstrikes.
Or, battered by continual losses in eastern Ukraine, they could decide that they have made their point and pull back.
Thibault Fouillet, deputy director of the Institute for Strategic and Defense Studies, a French research centre, said Ukraine’s next move would depend on how Russia responds. “The coming week will be decisive,” he said.
