Why Ukraine’s generals may have rolled the dice on an incursion into Russia

Kyiv needed a victory, but not a gamble.

Ukraine’s decision to throw a large amount of its scarce military resources across the border to Russia – in search of headlines but, so far, with an unclear strategic objective – marks a moment of despair or inspiration for Ukraine. And perhaps it foreshadows a new phase of the war.

Not because Ukraine’s incursions into Russia are in any way new – they have been going on for over a year, mostly by Russian citizens, who fight for Ukraine with obvious Ukrainian military assistance, but without any official, public role.

It seems new because it is, at least according to Russia, the Ukrainian regular army mounting an attack on Russia, and a rare release of the data by a high-ranking Ukrainian whose movements have been criticized mainly in the last 18 months for being too slow. and conservative.

On Tuesday, Kiev took badly needed resources and new troops and dropped them deep inside Russia. The immediate effect satisfied two needs: a headline involving Russian embarrassment and Ukrainian advance, and another that Moscow’s troops should disperse to reinforce their borders. After weeks of bad news for Kiev, during which Russian forces advanced slowly but inexorably towards Ukrainian military centers from Pokrovsk and Sloviansk, Moscow is left struggling to reinforce its most essential front line – its own border.

But even as Kiev refused to say anything on Wednesday about what Russian President Vladimir Putin called a “great provocation,” the wisdom of this gamble was openly questioned by some Ukrainian observers.

There may be a larger strategy at play here. Sudzha, now at least partially under Ukrainian control, is next to a Russian gas terminal, right on the border, which is critical to the supply of gas from Russia, through Ukraine, to Europe. This arrangement is said will close in January, and this may be an attempt to restrict a lucrative source of funding for Moscow that has angered Kiev since the full-scale invasion of Russia began in 2022. (As of Thursday, there were no public indications that the supply of gas was being affected).

However, until the broader importance of this incursion is revealed, there remains a huge question mark over the strategic objectives of Oleksandr Syrskyi, the comparatively young commander of Ukrainian forces. Divisions under his command have recently emerged into public view, with younger subordinates questioning Syrskyi’s willingness to sustain significant casualties in battles of attrition on the front line, in which Russia’s superior manpower usually prevails.

It’s a Soviet mentality and Syrskyi is from that era. But those who die or return home as amputees are often from a younger generation that values ​​dexterity and cunning perhaps more than brute persistence.

Ukraine has for months excelled in targeting – often with what appears to be Western help – Russia’s internal infrastructure, destroying runways, naval bases and oil terminals in an attempt to cause long-term damage to Moscow’s economy and war machine. But this is different: it involves sending a large ground force kilometers away from enemy territory, where Ukrainian supply lines are more complicated and objectives are, by definition, more difficult to achieve.

The measure comes at a time when the Ukrainian effort began to see a concrete benefit of Western weapons finally arriving.

F-16 fighters are new to the front lines, but they could be capable of disrupting Russia’s air supremacy in the coming months. This could mean fewer glide bombs hitting frontline Ukrainian troops and fewer missiles terrorizing Ukraine’s urban communities. Ammunition remains a problem for Kiev, according to some reports, but certainly Western supplies could eventually fill that gap.

So why this high-risk move now? If we look beyond the immediate cycle of positive news for President Volodymyr Zelensky, other objectives emerge. For the first time in the war, talks began to be held. Russia may be invited to participate in the next peace conference held by Ukraine and its allies. The proportion of Ukrainians who approve of the negotiations, although a minority, is growing marginally. And the possibility of a Trump presidency hangs over Kiev.

US Vice President Kamala Harris could maintain the same firmness as President Joe Biden regarding Ukraine. But it’s important to remember that Western foreign policy is a fickle and easily exhausted beast. NATO’s persistent support for Ukraine is an exception. And as the war approaches its fourth year, questions about how it will end will increase.

Is there any real merit in the fact that Ukraine fought and died without any real prospect of taking back occupied territory from Moscow? Does Russia want an indefinite advance, in which it loses thousands of men for hundreds of meters of advance and sees its broader military capacity slowly eroded by long-range Ukrainian attacks?

With the prospect of a negotiated settlement now less distant, both sides will fight to improve their position on the battlefield before coming to the table. It is unclear whether Ukraine’s move to Kursk is motivated by this, or by a simple measure to inflict damage where the enemy is weak.

But it marks a rare and substantial gamble with Kiev’s limited resources and thus could herald Ukrainians’ belief that greater change is coming.

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