Ukraine launched a minor offensive into Russian territory on Tuesday, penetrating a lightly defended sector of the front near Kursk. About 1,000 troops along with elements of two Mechanized Brigades penetrated at least 10 kilometers into Russia.
Moscow was caught completely by surprise and appeared to have some difficulty in deciding exactly how to present the surprising news to the Russian people. On one hand, it wanted to blow the incursion out of proportion and accuse Ukraine of "escalating" the conflict. On the other hand, it didn't want the country's milbloggers to present the incursion in such a way that would cause the country to lose faith in the eventual outcome of the war.
Ukraine is taking a huge risk. A setback or the annihilation of the invading troops would be a massive blow to the prestige of the Ukrainian military. When you consider the smallish benefits of such an incursion, you have to ask what is it they're trying to achieve.
“I’m still not sure what the goal here is,” wrote John Helin, a Ukraine expert with Finnish analysis group Black Bird Group. “According to unreliable reports, Ukraine has concentrated elements from two to four brigades in the area. These would be gravely needed in the east.”
Indeed, the Russian war of attrition in the east is slowly destroying the Ukrainian army. The incursion wasn't large enough to force Russia to withdraw forces in the East and send them to Kursk. So the question remains: Why has Ukraine chosen to launch what amounts to a glorified raid into Russia?
The Institute for the Study of War assessed the surprise incursion on Wednesday.
"The current confirmed extent and location of Ukrainian advances in Kursk Oblast indicate that Ukrainian forces have penetrated at least two Russian defensive lines and a stronghold," it said. It didn't give a name or location of the stronghold.
Is this a rehearsal for new offensive tactics to use against Russia's defensive works? During Ukraine's offensive in the summer of 2023, forces got bogged down trying to penetrate the several layers of the Russian defensive line. The tanks Ukraine had just received from Germany and other NATO countries were of little use in trying to break through Russia's fortifications.
In the end, Ukraine had to do it the old-fashioned way: infantry slogging through minefields to leverage Russian troops from their sturdily built defensive works. It turned out to be extremely costly in men and armor.
Breaking through Russian defense won't win the war for Ukraine, so there are probably other possible goals the Ukrainian command has in mind.
It’s possible the Ukrainian general staff in Kyiv believes a Ukrainian northern offensive might compel the Kremlin to shift troops away from eastern Ukraine, thereby slowing Russian advances on that front.
But at least two, and potentially four, Ukrainian brigades are engaged in this possible diversionary effort. For a diversionary strategy to pay off for Kyiv, the Kremlin would have to redeploy a lot of regiments from the east—potentially a dozen, according to Helin.
If the Russian northern grouping of forces can halt the Ukrainian advance without borrowing regiments from the east, the Ukrainian gambit will fail. Assuming, of course, that diverting Russian troops is the point.
I don't see how it could be the point. If Ukraine was looking for a diversion to relieve pressure in the East, it would have used a lot more than 1,000 soldiers and some armored elements from two Mechanized Brigades.
Some analysts are pointing to more realistic targets for the incursion.
Beyond giving Ukrainians a morale boost, Kyiv’s war planners may be collecting bargaining chips for armistice talks or to impress a new administration in Washington. The Kursk border region holds two strategic prizes: a chokepoint for half of Russian gas going to Europe by pipeline, and Russia’s westernmost nuclear power plant.
Yesterday, Ukrainian troops entered Sudzha, a Russian town of 6,000 located five miles from the border. Sudzha is the junction hub for two main gas lines — the Trans-Siberian pipeline and the 5,000-mile Brotherhood pipeline from the Arctic. After mysterious explosions took out Russia’s twin Baltic pipelines two years ago, Sudzha became the sole entry point for Russian gas into Ukraine’s pipeline system bound for Europe. Currently, 40 million cubic meters of gas passes daily through this hub.
Two Russian military bloggers claim that Ukrainian soldiers now control the gas metering station.
“I was just in the center, everything is more or less intact,” a worried man in a crew cut says in a selfie recorded in Russian. “The prosecutor’s office is destroyed. The city administration is flying the Ukrainian flag.”
This seems a reasonable assumption. It's the only tangible benefit of the incursion within reach. After all, what would Ukraine do with a nuclear reactor besides threatening the entire region (including Ukraine) with nuclear fallout? It would lose the support of its NATO allies if it threatened to turn the region into a nuclear wasteland.
We should know more about Ukraine's ultimate objectives in the next few days. Meanwhile, Moscow got a very nasty surprise and has yet to figure out how to present it to the Russian people.
