Eurasia Press & News
For over a week now, Ukrainian troops have been holding part of the Kursk region and, what’s more, expanding the combat zone. During this time, they have managed to occupy, according to various estimates, from 500 to 1,100 square kilometers and capture hundreds of prisoners. The Ukrainian Armed Forces’ offensive crosses the red line on the use of Western military equipment on internationally recognized Russian territory and clearly demonstrates that the presence of nuclear weapons does not guarantee protection from ground operations on the territory of the possessing state. But what are the ultimate goals of the Kursk operation? The Insider examines the main scenarios for the development of events.
On the night of August 6, a group of the Ukrainian Armed Forces attacked the border with Kursk Oblast in several places, broke through it and began to develop an offensive in diverging directions towards the regional centers of Sudzha, Korenevo and Lgov. According to the official version of the Russian Defense Ministry, only 300 servicemen from the 22nd Separate Mechanized Brigade took part in the attack , supported by 11 tanks and over 20 armored fighting vehicles . On the same day, the department reported that they had “defeated” a Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance group , although they later edited the post, deleting the passage that the Ukrainian military “suffered significant losses and retreated to Ukrainian territory.”
By August 7, Ukrainian Armed Forces units had occupied up to 11 settlements in a sector up to 15 km deep and 10–11 km wide, reaching Sudzha and, apparently, capturing a significant part of the city. In the first days of the operation, Ukrainian troops entered operational space and operated in raid groups at a significant distance from the border. Only by August 9, according to Z -sources, the Russian Armed Forces managed to stabilize the situation in certain areas.
However, the initiative is still in the hands of the Ukrainian command, and a continuous LBS has not yet been formed. According to official information from the Russian Defense Ministry ( 1 , 2 , 3 ), the Ukrainian Armed Forces continue to try to expand the bridgehead up to the junction with the administrative border with the Belgorod Region.
The initiative in the Kursk region is in the hands of the Ukrainian command
The area of the combat zone in the Kursk region is estimated to be between 480 sq. km to more than 1000 sq. km. Acting Governor of the Kursk region Alexey Smirnov said on August 12 that a total of 28 settlements had been lost, the breakthrough was 12 km deep and 40 km wide (that is, 480 sq. km in area), and Vladimir Putin cut him off at these words.
At the same time, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrsky reported ( 1 , 2 , 3 ) to Volodymyr Zelensky about control over more than 1,100 sq. km of territory and 82 settlements. According to DeepState , the Ukrainian military controls approximately 800 sq. km, and another 230 sq. km can be classified as a “gray zone” , that is, the situation there is unknown.
These successes are explained by the achievement of “operational surprise” by secretly concentrating significant forces on the border under the guise of preparing to repel a Russian offensive on the Sumy region and an overwhelming advantage in military-technical means such as electronic warfare systems and UAVs . Quite a lot of armored vehicles, including Western ones, as well as engineering vehicles and scarce air defense systems, were collected for the Ukrainian offensive . Helicopters and, apparently, aircraft carrying Western guided air munitions are also involved in the operation.
The successes of the Ukrainian Armed Forces are explained by the achievement of the effect of “operational surprise”
In addition, unlike previous limited raids in the Bryansk, Kursk and Belgorod regions, this time it is not the GUR sabotage and reconnaissance units that are taking part in the battles , but the “linear” brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Many commentators compare the current maneuvers in the Kursk direction with the operation near Kharkov in the fall of 2022, namely, with the breakthrough near the city of Balakleya. It is noteworthy that, as then, the Ukrainian troops under the command of Alexander Syrsky are opposed by a group under the command of General Alexander Lapin.
What are the goals of the Ukrainian operation?
There is some debate on this point. The goals under discussion boil down to four possible options.
Diversion of Russian troops from other directions
The minimum goal may be to create a crisis of such a scale that it will distract all available forces of the Russian Armed Forces from the theater of military operations on the internationally recognized territory of Ukraine. In this case, the offensive in Donbas, where Russian troops continue to achieve tactical successes, will fizzle out on its own. The maximum goal is probably to force a direct weakening of those directions where the current Russian offensive is taking place and to launch a counterattack there.
The AFP agency, citing a high-ranking Ukrainian official, writes that one of the goals was indeed to “stretch” the enemy’s forces. At the same time, as The Economist reports , the Russian command is in no hurry to send as many people and equipment to the Kursk direction as Ukraine would like. “[The Russians] are not idiots. They are transferring forces, but not as quickly as we would like. They know that we cannot stretch logistics for 80-100 km,” said an anonymous source of the publication in the Ukrainian General Staff.
The Russian Armed Forces Command is in no hurry to transfer reserves to the Kursk Region
If the offensive in Donbass really stops due to the transfer of reserves of the Russian Armed Forces, then this will be an unequivocal success, but so far there have been no significant movements of units from there.
Strengthening negotiating positions
Few people paid attention to the fact that on the eve of the offensive on the Kursk region, Volodymyr Zelensky made a statement about preparing a “real foundation for a fair end to this war this year.” Later, adviser to the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Mykhailo Podolyak said that the operation of the Ukrainian Armed Forces has a positive effect on possible negotiations with Russia.
Vladimir Putin, of course, on the contrary, is trying to show that there is no point in negotiating now (which indirectly confirms that his negotiating positions have weakened):
“It appears that the enemy is seeking to improve its negotiating position in the future. But what kind of negotiations can we even talk about with people who indiscriminately strike civilians, civilian infrastructure, or try to create threats to nuclear power facilities? What can we even talk about with them?”
Acting Permanent Representative of Russia to the UN Dmitry Polyansky even assessed the events in the Kursk region as Kiev’s negative response to the “generous offer” of peace talks. Let us recall that Putin’s “generous offer” consisted of a demand to withdraw Ukrainian troops from the Kherson, Zaporizhia, Donetsk and Luhansk regions, oblige Ukraine not to join NATO and maintain neutral status, and also lift all sanctions against Russia.
The Kremlin assessed the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ offensive as a refusal to negotiate peace
As for the threats to nuclear power facilities mentioned by Putin, we are talking ( 1 , 2 , 3 ) about a hypothetical seizure of the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant in the city of Kurchatov by the Ukrainian Armed Forces for the purpose of subsequent “atomic blackmail.” There were reports of a sabotage and reconnaissance group approaching to within 18.5 km of Kurchatov, but it is unlikely that the seizure of a nuclear power plant can be seriously considered an argument for negotiations. In addition, the nuclear power plant is too far from the border to ensure confident control over it and over the flanks of a potential breakthrough towards Kurchatov.
Raising morale in Ukrainian society and the army
Since the end of 2022, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have not achieved any noticeable successes at the front, and the war of attrition with the constant loss of settlements has a detrimental effect on the mood of the military, which leads, among other things, to an increase in desertion . A Financial Times correspondent who visited the border area of Sumy Oblast talks about the improvement in the morale of the Ukrainian military taking part in the operation.
Destabilization of the situation in Russia
According to official figures, 121,000 of the 180,000 people affected by the war have been evacuated from the Kursk Region combat zone, which is fraught with a large-scale humanitarian crisis. In addition, almost all residents have left the Krasnoyarsk District of the Belgorod Region adjacent to the region, and a mass exodus of civilians from other border areas is also possible. Until now, such challenges have only been faced in Ukraine, but not in Russia, and it is premature to judge how regional and federal authorities will cope with them. But the Ukrainian political leadership views the task of “transferring the war to enemy territory” with all its costs as valuable in itself.
In any case, it should be borne in mind that in a purely military sense, the Ukrainian Armed Forces operation could not have achieved any significant goals, since there are no and never have been any large concentrations of troops, no important military infrastructure facilities, no political or economic centers in the Kursk region. Although, according to some estimates , control over the railway junction in Sudzha will damage the logistics of the group fighting in the north of the Kharkov region, and Podolyak, among other things, speaks about this .
How do they react in Russia?
It’s quite strange. Initially, the border cover group in the Kursk region consisted of units of limited combat capability, including the so-called territorial defense, conscripts, border guards and Rosgvardia. They were unable to put up prolonged organized resistance. At least several hundred soldiers were captured (according to some estimates , the total number of prisoners reaches 1,000 people). As far as can be judged, the servicemen of the Chechen unit “Akhmat” abandoned their positions, practically without entering the battle ( 1 , 2 ). Fortification lines worth more than 15 billion rubles did not help either.
Z-commentators admitted ( 1 , 2 ) that in the first days, due to the lack of heavy equipment in the area and communications suppressed by Ukrainian electronic warfare, the only force opposing the attackers was aviation. And not only in the sky, but also on the ground: as stated , on the approaches to the regional center of Korenevo, motorized riflemen recruited from the Russian Aerospace Forces entered the battle with the advanced detachments of the Ukrainian Armed Forces . At first, the Ukrainian Armed Forces equipment could only be hit with operational-tactical missiles and Lancets .
Vladimir Putin called the Ukrainian Armed Forces offensive a “large-scale provocation,” appointed First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov responsible for the “situation” in the Kursk region, and introduced a counter-terrorist operation (CTO) regime in the region (and the neighboring Bryansk and Belgorod regions). It is not entirely clear who should lead the actions to repel the Ukrainian offensive in this case: the command of the “North” group of troops, led by General Lapin, whose area of responsibility includes the region, or the FSB, according to the legal regime of the CTO.
It is not yet entirely clear who is leading the repulse of the Ukrainian Armed Forces offensive in the Kursk region
However, Dara Massicot, a researcher in the Russian-Eurasian program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, notes that the CTO regime used during the Second Chechen War became an example of successful cooperation between various security agencies, and FSB chief Alexander Bortnikov, as well as Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, gained relevant experience in Chechnya. At the same time, the CTO headquarters has not yet been formed, and it is not entirely clear who will lead it, since the commanders of Russian military districts (and concurrently troop groups) are busy with operations on Ukrainian territory.
In addition, instead of a full-fledged military grouping, a hodgepodge of units with obviously
questionable combat capability and an obvious shortage of personnel is being created in the Kursk region (some commentators call them a “scattering of cores”). Among them, the “Pyatnashka” brigade (aka the “Wild Division of Donbass”) stands out with a Porsche Cayenne as part of a military column and various volunteer units – “Sarmat”, “Che Guevara” and others.
Apparently, the Russian command did not have any deployed operational or even tactical reserves in the Kursk direction, and it was forced to improvise on the fly, but at the same time it was trying with all its might to avoid diverting combat units from the front line in Donbass. Hence the haste and confusion, fraught with incidents like the broken column near Rylsk.
The chaotic anti-crisis campaign in the media deserves special mention, with state media publishing geolocatable videos of military transport movements and falsifying footage of strikes in the combat zone by the Russian Ministry of Defense.
How might events develop further?
The attitude towards the Kursk operation changed over time. On the first day, Tatarigami_UA sharply criticized the Ukrainian Armed Forces operation in the Kursk region, pointing out that the diversion of forces to this direction against the backdrop of the critical situation in the Avdiivka operational area (largely due to the lack of personnel) is devoid of strategic sense and, moreover, “borders on mental retardation.” Rob Lee doubted the choice of direction of attack, since the Russian Armed Forces command is already conducting combat operations in this operational area in the north of the Kharkov region and has established supply chains. John Helin, an OSINT analyst at the Black Bird Group , noted that holding the captured territories in the Kursk region will require significantly more resources than the Ukrainian command has at its disposal.
However, later the intonations began to change.
Emil Kastehjelmi from Black Bird Group does not rule out the possibility of similar operations by the Ukrainian Armed Forces in other areas of the front, since by creating an operational crisis in the Kursk region, Ukrainian troops have gained the opportunity to attack in another vulnerable place. In the region itself, a significant effect should be expected only in the case of a deep advance towards Kursk.
Mick Ryan notes that the unexpected Ukrainian offensive has shaken the established opinion about the impossibility of operational surprise and offensive actions as such on the modern “transparent” battlefield. In his opinion, when the current phase of the development of the success of the operation is completed and the front is stabilized, the Ukrainian Armed Forces command will have to choose from three options.
The military-political leadership of Ukraine must choose one of the options for continuing the operation in the Kursk region
The first is to build a defense on the achieved lines and hold them until some negotiations. Although in this scenario the Ukrainian Armed Forces will still pose a serious threat, forcing the Russian Armed Forces to transfer additional reserves, Ryan considers it the most risky, since the numerous “protrusions” of Ukrainian positions that have formed can be “cut off” quite easily, which will lead to large losses.
The second option is to retreat to more advantageous positions on Russian territory and build defense there. This looks less risky, defense will require fewer resources, and the freed-up forces can be transferred to other areas. At the same time, this scenario will still bring strategic and political dividends, in particular, strengthening negotiating positions.
The third option is to completely leave Russian territory, retreating to the state border. This will allow the Ukrainian group to be preserved and used in other areas. At the same time, Russia (as well as Ukraine’s Western partners) will receive a signal that Kyiv is capable of conducting offensive operations of such scale and complexity on enemy territory.
Be that as it may, the Ukrainian command has opened a new operational direction that will require forces and means, rotations, and supplies. According to current estimates , individual units of more than six brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces are participating in the operation (but not the entire brigade!), that is, we are talking about a group of several thousand people and almost certainly no more than 10 thousand – even taking into account the rear and auxiliary units in the Sumy region. At the same time, these are some of the most combat-ready and well-equipped units of the Ukrainian army, and it is still unknown what the second and third echelon forces are (and whether they exist at all, and under what conditions they are supposed to be introduced into combat). For the observed grouping of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the maximum achievable goals appear to be access to the Rylsk-Kursk highway and expansion of the control zone in areas with a short logistical shoulder, directly adjacent to Ukrainian territory.
If we assume that the LBS will be established approximately along the current line of confident control of Ukrainian troops in the Kursk region (without the raid operations zone), then this means the emergence of about 150 km of a new section of the front. It is believed that the battalion defense area occupies from 5 km to 10 km along the front, accordingly, the RF Armed Forces will need to attract from 15 to 30 battalions with all the necessary reinforcements. With a battalion of approximately 500 people, the required detail of forces will be from 7.5 thousand to 15 thousand people, not counting artillery, aviation, reconnaissance and other units.
However, the seizure of such a large part of Russian territory is more of a political than a military problem, and the Ukrainian leadership can assume that the Kremlin will try to drive the Ukrainian Armed Forces out of the Kursk region as quickly as possible and without regard to losses. For a counteroffensive, the Russian command will have to form a group at least twice as large (up to 30 thousand people), with significant artillery and armored components.
The Kremlin will try to expel the Ukrainian Armed Forces from the Kursk region as quickly as possible and without regard to losses; for this, up to 30 thousand people are needed
One of the important and already obvious results of the Kursk operation of the Ukrainian Armed Forces is that the red lines in the use of Western military equipment ( Stryker armored personnel carriers , Marder infantry fighting vehicles , HIMARS multiple rocket launchers ) were crossed without any particular consequences.
The Pentagon called the actions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces “in line with American policy” and noted that Ukraine can “defend itself against attacks” using American weapons, including in this way. The German authorities also made it clear that they are not against the use of German military equipment. At the same time, Great Britain has not yet authorized the use of Storm Shadow / SCALP-EG missiles . According to The Washington Post, Ukrainian officials have again requested permission to fire ATACMS missiles at internationally recognized Russian territory to achieve the goals of the offensive in the Kursk region.
Another notable intermediate result is that we are witnessing the devaluation of Russia’s status as a nuclear power, as the armed forces of a non-nuclear state invade the country’s territory, and the country proves unable to stop the enemy with conventional weapons.
Having launched an operation to create a “sanitary zone” in the Kharkiv region in May 2024 to protect the Russian border from shelling by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Vladimir Putin first achieved a fivefold increase in missile attacks on the Kursk region, and now he has also received a “sanitary zone” on his own territory – at least, this is how the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry justifies the offensive.
