Ukrainian forces invaded Russia this week to attack a border region, in a stunning counteroffensive that comes after Kiev has been largely on the defensive for the past year and a half.
The Ukrainian attack, the first by a foreign nation on Russia’s European soil since World War II, triggered an emergency in the Kursk region, bordering Sumy province in northeastern Ukraine.
Ukrainian troops and armored vehicles have advanced at least 32 kilometers and continue to advance deeper into Kursk on the fourth day of the battle, capturing dozens of Russian border guards, taking several towns and surrounding the city of Sudzha, where fighting continues.
The surprise attack infuriated Russian President Vladimir Putin, who classified the incursion as a “great provocation”, raising fears of a potential Kremlin escalation not only in the war against Ukraine, but also with the US, Kiev’s main supporter.
While it is unclear how the offensive will proceed, Ukraine managed to change the narrative of the war by invading Russia, said Alena Kudzko, vice president of policy and programming at think tank GLOBSEC.
“Ukrainians are trying hard to change the narrative of the war. Before [Kursk]there was a feeling that the war had become quite predictable and, on many sides, the war was already considered frozen,” she said. “By carrying out this attack, Ukraine was able to demonstrate that there is indeed room to make this war unpredictable, that there is room to surprise Russia.”
The Kursk offensive is reminiscent of the Kharkiv and Kherson counteroffensives of 2022, in which high-speed Ukrainian maneuvers caught Russia by surprise.
US officials supported Ukraine’s attack. Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh on Thursday told reporters that Kursk was consistent with Washington’s policy of defending against Russian border attacks and not an escalation of war.
“We don’t think this is an escalation,” she said. “Ukraine is doing what it needs to do to succeed on the battlefield.”
Kiev has struggled to defend itself from Russian attacks for months along the 600-mile front line, in a war of attrition that has favored a larger Russia.
Even with the Kursk offensive, Russian forces continue to attack their main targets, in the northeastern region of Kharkiv, neighboring Sumy, and the eastern province of Donetsk.
Russian troops have made slow, incremental gains but continue to advance toward key objectives, including the important city of Chasiv Yar in Donetsk. Taking this city could give Moscow a high position and allow an advance towards the twin cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, which have long been in Russia’s sights in the aim of capturing all of Donetsk.
The Russian offensive on Kharkiv also continues, although its troops have not yet captured the city of Vovchansk, which would open the way to the city of Kharkiv and appears to be slowing down the offensive.
Ukraine’s incursion has put pressure on Russia to divert troops and defend its borders, said Federico Borsari, a fellow in the transatlantic defense and security program at the Center for European Policy Analysis.
“Now it’s up to the Russians what they want to do with this offensive on Kursk,” he said. “I think the Russians will try to overcome the pressure, even if it means [possibly] giving Ukraine some options elsewhere.”
Still, he added that it is not yet clear at this stage whether the attack will have any dramatic effect on the front lines, where Ukraine remains at a disadvantage, trying to defend itself from Russian attacks with depleted human resources.
While months of delays in U.S. aid have crippled Ukraine’s defenses, billions of dollars in U.S. weapons and equipment are now being poured onto the battlefield.
The new weapons include F-16s, a small batch of which arrived in Ukraine this week to help defend the skies. Air superiority is crucial to high-speed maneuver warfare, but it is unclear whether F-16s were used or were part of the calculation in Kursk.
The aid did not solve all of Ukraine’s defensive problems. And although Ukraine has lowered the draft age from 27 to 25 – allowing it to call up more troops – it will not resolve severe labor shortages for months or more.
The Kursk offensive is likely an effort to offset these difficulties, said Rafael Loss, policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
“The most significant problem for Ukraine right now is labor,” he said. “Perhaps news of a bold move will motivate some more Ukrainian volunteers to sign up. I’m not sure this will fundamentally change individuals’ risk calculus, but it could start to change the tone of discussions around volunteering.”
Senior Ukrainian officials have not acknowledged any attack on Kursk, although Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his advisers sent cryptic messages that all but confirmed it.
“War is a war, with its own rules, where the aggressor inevitably reaps corresponding results,” wrote Mykhailo Podolyak, one of Zelensky’s top advisors, on social platform.
Ukraine appears to be attacking in two main directions: towards Sudzha and another district to the west, Korenevsky. But troops appear to be circulating in various parts of the region and forcing Russia to respond in multiple arenas.
Ukraine will now have to confront what it does with the territory it holds in Russia and whether this diverts attention from defensive efforts on the front lines.
Tomasz Blusiewicz, a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, said Ukraine would likely withdraw from Kursk, but only after forcing Russia to move multiple brigades, which would exploit front-line positions.
“Now they have to move. And the Russians are bad at it. They are bad at logistics,” he said. “It was a brilliant move by Ukraine. … They have already achieved enormous success in forcing Russia to move its troops, by demonstrating that Russia is defenseless in other areas. It’s a huge blow to Putin’s prestige.”
Russia has sent reinforcements to Kursk and promised it will be able to repel Ukrainian forces.
Major General Apty Alaudinov, deputy head of Russia’s main military-political directorate, told state news agency TASS that “the situation is difficult but not critical” in Kursk and that Ukraine was unable to avoid an inevitable collapse on the front lines.
“The enemy can be stopped and destroyed,” he said. “Once we destroy these resources, I am more than certain that the enemy will have nothing to fight us with.”
Instead of holding territory, Ukraine’s plan may be to attack strategic resources in Russia, including equipment and areas used to mount attacks. Capturing prisoners and territory can also be used in negotiations and prisoner exchanges.
Ukrainian forces also seized a gas measuring station in Kursk and threatened a nearby Russian nuclear plant.
Brock Bierman, a visiting fellow at the German Marshall Fund, said the offensive was strategic to target a region of Russia with important assets that Ukraine could destroy and remove as a threat.
It is also “a way to disperse the front lines” and force Russia to “reallocate resources” to protect its assets, he added.
“Now they’re going to have to think about what that allocation will look like, not just in that specific region, but along a very, very long border,” he said.
The Kursk offensive forced Russian citizens to face the direct consequences of the war. Before the attack, Ukraine’s attacks on Russia were limited to occasional drone strikes on oil depots or strategic assets. In recent months, they have begun using U.S.-made weapons, including long-range artillery, to strike targets near the border.
But now, Russians in Kursk have been forced to evacuate their homes and several people have been killed.
The war has already been costly for Russian forces, with more than 1,000 casualties in May and June, according to the UK Ministry of Defense.
Some Russians blamed the government and military for failing to anticipate the Kursk attack or for failing to adequately defend against the incursion.
Russian military blogger Rybar, who closely supports Russia’s military objectives and is a retired Kremlin press officer, blamed Moscow because Ukraine had been “building up forces for months.”
“For two months, all information was sent to useless higher headquarters. There was sufficient time to make an appropriate decision,” Rybar said in a Telegram post. “The price for this is the forces of the Ukrainian formations that entered Sudzha and Korenevo.”
Putin maintains tight control over his country and dissent is generally crushed. But the Kursk attacks threaten to unravel his narrative that the war is under control.
Kudzko, from the GLOBSEC think tank, said he did not expect major internal changes in Russia, but also emphasized that this would increase pressure on the Kremlin.
“There will be more dissatisfaction among the population against the Kremlin and against the government,” she said. “Even people who, in principle, say we support the war, would not be happy with the consequences of this war on their lives.”
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