Ukraine caught much of the world by surprise when it invaded Russia on Aug. 6. Ukrainian Armed Forces now control around 1,200 square kilometers of Russian territory, or roughly 500 square miles. The advance is accomplishing one of the primary goals of the campaign: Create a buffer zone around Sumy Oblast in northern Ukraine.
“As a result, the number of Russian attacks from tubed weapons decreased, as well as the number of casualties among civilians,” Elina Beketova, a Democracy Fellow with the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), said. “It also created an opportunity to repair the power infrastructure in safer conditions and prepare it for the beginning of the heating season.”
Beketova and several colleagues recently hosted a panel discussion for the press focusing on the Kursk offensive. They said Ukraine’s recent battlefield gains are significant. Ukraine has seized more territory in two weeks than Russia has in eight months, but the experts cautioned that now is not the time for celebration. It’s still unclear whether Ukraine is at the beginning of the end of the Kursk campaign or just at the end of the beginning.
“The longer this goes on, the more questions will be there,” CEPA Senior Fellow Nico Lange said. “What to do with the local population? How to organize the continued work of the villages and cities that are now in the Ukrainian military sphere of influence? Because the city administrations, by and large, ran away. The Russians plundered their own shops. This will last for a few days, but what will come after?”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his administration said they don’t want to occupy Russia. Instead, they want to put Ukraine in a stronger position ahead of any potential peace talks — talks that could now include discussions of mutual force withdrawal, should they occur.
The campaign remains a gamble for Ukraine, and it’s unclear whether it will ultimately succeed. However, one thing is becoming clear.
“All of this narrative which Russia tried to sell to the Western audience — that ‘any foreign soldier who one day will come on our soil will be eliminated, and we are always ready to use nuclear weapons against this foreign soldier’ — this narrative currently is pointless,” CEPA Senior Fellow Pavel Luzin said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s response to the Kursk invasion was slow. Initially, he said Russia wouldn’t have enough resources to expel Ukraine from Kursk until October. Russia continues to do well in the eastern Ukrainian Donetsk region, where it is making slow but steady gains and does not want to give up its offensive.
“I think what we can say is Russia is trying everything possible to avoid taking the pressure off the Ukrainian frontline,” Lange said. “That’s the reason why they have all sorts of radar troops, conscripts, troops that belong to the Ministry of Interior now in Kursk Oblast.”
In a new sign the Kremlin is running out of seasoned soldiers, specialists such as radar operators were sent into Kursk along with newly drafted conscripts who only received a few weeks of subpar training.
“They are not ready to participate in combat operations because their responsibility is protection of their air force bases, or, I don’t know, space launch sites,” Luzin said. “Even if they are trained, their specialization is not good for joint force combat operations.”
Lange added, “The best thing the Russian conscripts can do is to turn themselves in to the Ukrainians immediately. Because conscripts like this, on their training level, facing battle-hardened Ukrainian, grim mechanized forces — they will not survive this.”
As of publication, there are early reports that Russia may be moving more mechanized brigades into Kursk, along with more battle-hardened troops. Ukraine is asking once again for the West to lift restrictions on using long-range weapons inside Russia.
“Russian troops will be vulnerable when they are moving around,” Lange said. “And I think it’s very important now that the Western partners allow Ukraine to use deep strike precision fires to hit the Russian troops on the march. That’s best for everybody if they never even arrive on the battlefield, and you can hit them while they are moving around somewhere.”
According to Lange and most other experts, the only way the West lifts the weapons restrictions is for the White House to “stop being so shy.”
