Key Points and Summary – Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, has revealed a staggering new figure, claiming Russia suffered 80,000 casualties during Ukraine’s 2024 incursion into the Kursk region.
-The operation, initially a “masterstroke,” caught Russia by surprise and exposed the “deplorable state” of its border defenses.
-It successfully forced Moscow to divert troops from other fronts, derailing a planned Russian offensive in Sumy.
-However, the incursion eventually turned into a bloody “slugfest,” and while Russia’s losses were immense, critics note the operation also cost Ukraine dearly and did not halt Russian advances elsewhere.
Moscow Suffered 80,000 Casualties in the Kursk Incursion by Ukraine
WARSAW, POLAND – Ukraine’s August 2024 incursion into the Kursk region was regarded as a masterstroke at the time.
Not only was the Russian military caught entirely by surprise, but the ability of the Ukrainian units to occupy a sizeable piece of territory on the Russian side of the border caused President Vladimir Putin considerable embarrassment.
More significantly, perhaps, was the degree to which this small invasion into Kursk revealed the disorganized and generally deplorable state of the Russian military on that part of the front.
As the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) assessment of the operation points out, one of the chief weaknesses that Ukraine exploited was that the Kremlin had “failed to prioritize security along the international border with northern Ukraine throughout the invasion” and that the Kursk Oblast was neglected “in favor of fortifying and reinforcing Russian positions in eastern and southern Ukraine.”
Rather than having a proper organization or command structure of regular armed forces units, the Kremlin had “largely relied on Federal Security Service (FSB) border guards, Rosgvardia units, territorial defense units, and poorly trained conscripts to defend the border over the last three years.”
80,000 Casualties
Today’s news makes the picture look even worse with Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi revealing in a 23 July interview in the Washington Post that Moscow has suffered 80,000 soldiers killed and injured during this cross-border incursion into Kursk Oblast.
Kursk Operation Kept Russians From Attacking in Sumy
Syrskyi has not revealed Ukraine’s casualties in Kursk Oblast as Kyiv does not release those numbers, but he did day said that Russia’s losses were orders of magnitude greater. The US Washington, DC daily qualified the comments by stating these claims could not be independently verified.
Ukraine launched the Kursk incursion across the Russian border into Kursk in August of last year. The operation not only met with largely ineffective resistance at first, but at its highwater mark Kyiv’s forces had taken roughly 500 square miles of territory within just a few months.
The entire operation was orchestrated by Syrskyi and was aimed at forcing Moscow’s military to siphon off Russian units from the front lines in Ukraine’s eastern region, so that they could mount a counterattack and drive the Ukrainian troops out of the salient created.
This, in turn, reduced the resources available for offensive operations to the degree that Moscow’s plans to invade Ukraine’s Sumy Oblast, a northeastern region bordering Kursk Oblast, had to be shelved.
In the Spring of this year, Russia finally mounted a counteroffensive against the Ukrainian forces. Their numbers were supplemented by some 12,000 North Korean troops, who the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) leader, Kim Jong-un, is receiving US$2000 per soldier per month from Putin.
How Much of a Masterstroke Was the Kursk Operation?
The Russian counter-offensive this spring eventually pushed the Ukrainian units from much of the Kursk region. Also, it took some territory on the Ukrainian side of the border in Sumy Oblast.
Reports from the open-source monitoring group DeepState, that maintains a live, interactive map on-line, show that Ukrainian units continue to occupy a small section of Russian territory on the border in Kursk Oblast. Kyiv has also regularly denounced Moscow’s claims that hostilities in the area have ended.
The Kursk operation was initially lauded for achieving complete operational surprise and rapidly occupying a sizable piece of Russian territory.
From a psychological standpoint the operation was a success on several levels.
An assessment from the Hoover Institution, written by former US Ambassador to Russia Michael Mc Faul points out that:
“The Kursk incursion has produced tangible benefits. First, [Ukraine President Volodymyr] Zelenskiy succeeded in reversing the growing global narrative that Ukraine was losing the war. Second, Zelenskyy undermined the Western voices calling on the Ukrainian leader to swap land for peace. The discussion has changed, at least for now. Zelenskyy’s negotiation position is certainly stronger today than it was before the Kursk incursion.”
“Third, the psychological boost for Ukrainians is palpable in the reporting I read and in my daily conversations with Ukrainians,” writes the former diplomat.
However, other experts have divided opinions regarding its longer-term strategic utility. These critics say the incursion fell short in halting Russian advances in Donetsk Oblast. Their argument also suggests that the Kursk operation should have been curtailed much sooner, so that it would not have turned into the “slugfest” that resulted in substantial losses on the Ukrainian side, both in personnel and equipment.
To this day, Syrskyi and other Ukrainian political and military officials refer to these heavy Russian casualties as the Kursk operation’s most important accomplishment.
In April, after Russia claimed to have taken back most of the territory in the Kursk Oblast, the Ukrainian military estimated Russian losses at 25,200 killed and 36,200 injured.
Added to that total are another 6,000 DPRK soldiers lost, which is half of their force that was sent to the region originally.
Neither side has the initiative nor the capacity to effect any meaningful change in the disposition of the front lines.
Until then, the war is likely to continue as it is now, and with very little chance of it ending anytime soon.
About the Author: Reuben F. Johnson
Reuben F. Johnson has thirty-six years of experience analyzing and reporting on foreign weapons systems, defense technologies, and international arms export policy. Johnson is the Director of Research at the Casimir Pulaski Foundation. He is also a survivor of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. He worked for years in the American defense industry as a foreign technology analyst and later as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Defense, the Departments of the Navy and Air Force, and the governments of the United Kingdom and Australia. In 2022-2023, he won two awards in a row for his defense reporting. He holds a bachelor’s degree from DePauw University and a master’s degree from Miami University in Ohio, specializing in Soviet and Russian studies. He lives in Warsaw.
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Swamplaw Yankee
July 25, 2025 at 1:22 am
The peer reviewer asks, what is this op-ed hacks big point about the re-start in 2014 of the thousand year old cultural genocide of Ukrainians?
How many Ukrainian Fathers died in 1616 as they died by the thousands to kill the ruskie pedophiles in the ancient on-going sex trade in Christian Ukrainian Children? The USA has ignored the 2014 POTUS OBAMA re-start of this ancient war with his marxist unilateral, greenlighting of the loss of Ukraine’s Crimea soil and families. The USA POTUS allows in 2014 the re-start of a millenia long ruskie elite child trafficking business and the next POTUS claims that he “knows nut ting” and will mouth neutrality type baloney.
Canada formulated R2P: remember that one, reader? Like 3T: the third Trudeau. It was entitled “Responsibility to Protect”. Canada “accepted” this doctirne + spent big tax dollar cash to move endorsement by the UN General Assembly and the UN Security Council. Wow!
Why was Kursk full of Han CCP Zi axis of evil troops and Ukraine had zero WEST troops?
The R2P is based on the fundamental belief that the primary responsibility of any state is to protect the human rights of its citizens! Wow. If a government is unable or unwilling to do so or is the perpetrator of gross violations of human rights, crimes against humanity, and war crimes and/or genocide that sacred responsibility passes to the international community. Who is that? the UN?
The R2P details the methods that can be used: international sanctions and the use of deadly force.
So, POTUS Obama in2014 greenlights this re-start of cultural genocide of Ukrainians and the killing is done by orc muscovite tsarlings, the UN will use deadly force to protect the rights of human beings, like Ukrainians. This stuff is real, legal and adopted by the UN?
Is this new 3T leader of Canada ready to lead the UN Security Council forces to protect the rights of Ukrainian humans from orc muscovite pedophiles? Oh! 3T refuses to raise Canadian taxes to 3% of GNP for defence! So, even 2025 Canada is puffing out rhetoric, making sure zero tax funds are available for preventing cultural genocide and crimes against humanity!!
Strange how the ruskie muscovite tsarlings never mention their 20 million killing of Ukrainians in the 1932-33 Holodomor? Canada did what in 1932-33 to save Ukrainian children from ruskie muscovite tsarling genocide called HOLODOMOR?
-30-
Jim
July 25, 2025 at 11:31 am
If you believe what Kiev’s spokesmen tell you, I gotta bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.
Of course, what seems to be glossed over is the total defeat of Kiev’s forces in Kursk Oblast in a desperate gambit at nuclear blackmail, a civilian nuclear plant was their objective, where possibly 50% of Kiev’s forces ended up casualties or POW’s.
“Neither side has the initiative nor the capacity to effect any meaningful change in the disposition of the front lines.” — Mr. Johnson.
False, Kiev’s lines are collapsing in the Pokrovsk pocket, a bulwark in Kiev’s defenses and a crucial logistical hub which upon its fall opens the way to consolidating and advancing the front lines and opening up the way all the way to the East bank of the Dnieper River.
You’re whistling past the Ukrainian graveyard.
Kiev is being crushed one soldier at a time… drone supremacy or dominance does not overcome manpower shortages at the front.
5th Generation Warfare propaganda means nothing anymore.
The battlefield will tell… that’s where the rubber meats the road. Let’s see where things are around September 2, 2025.
You know the expression used out West, “Money talks, b. s. walks!”
That’s where the mouth pieces for Kiev are these days, drooling propaganda for a lost cause.