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Ukraine War

Ukraine’s Kursk Offensive Could Be a Real Game Changer

T-90M from Russia.
T-90M from Russia. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

On August 6th, 2024, Ukraine started a surprise incursion into the Kursk region of Russia that is quickly becoming an offensive. Unlike prior raids and incursions into Russia, the Ukrainian army caught not only the Russian military off guard but also their NATO partners.

Within the past week, the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) have moved quickly and expanded their areas of control in Kursk, causing the Russian command and general public to be in disarray.

Despite facing major pressure from the Russian military in Donetsk, Ukraine looks to enact several objectives in Kursk that could tilt the tide of the war going forward.

Objectives in Kursk

The UAF could attempt to achieve several main objectives in Kursk oblast.

Kursk is a main logistical and railway hub that sits on several heights that can be defended, along with a riverbank that gives time for Ukrainian brigades to dig in.

Cutting off Russian logistics to their army group north in Kharkiv can be a primary objective, along with holding Moscow’s main pipelines into Europe. Kyiv will look to hold territory for future negotiations against Moscow in a potential trade-off by expanding outwards and not just forwards.

Kursk also contains a major nuclear power plant that supplies electricity throughout significant sectors of Russia. Potentially capturing the atomic power plant, Ukraine can turn off the electricity and simultaneously use it for future negotiations to coerce Russia into withdrawing from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

Though Ukraine cannot hold onto the territory for a while as the new mobilization law hasn’t been fully implemented to replenish stretched-out forces, the UAF can create a helpful buffer and push Russian artillery farther from the northern borders.

Drawing Away Russian Units from the Frontlines

Kyiv is sending multiple brigades to take large swaths of Russian territory to not only use for further negotiations but also to divert their military away from the hardest-hit areas in Ukraine.

During the spring and summer, Russian forces have stepped up daily attacks on critical areas of the frontline, such as Chasiv Yar, Toretsk, and Pokrovsk. Currently, in Donetsk, Russia is pushing harder than it has been since the beginning of the invasion.

The scale of combat has been heavy and brutal in Ukraine and Russia alike. The UK Defense Ministry has reported that Russian casualties over the past few months are the heaviest it has been in the war due to the extremely heavy offensives in Donetsk and Kharkiv.

Waiting until Russia stretched its strategic reserves thin, along with the heavy Russian military casualties, Ukraine looks to force the Kremlin into a precarious situation. The UAF military can continue pushing into Kursk because conscripts are in the oblast compared to Russia’s more combat-tested brigades in Donetsk.

If Russia were to redeploy its strategic reserves from Donetsk, their offensives in Chasiv Yar, Toretsk, and Pokrovsk would lose steam. The lines could stabilize as Ukraine’s newly formed brigades post-mobilization law comes in to relieve the other war-battered UAF units.

Currently, Russia is indeed redeploying key units from not only the war-battered Donetsk oblast but also Kharkiv, Luhansk, Zaphorizhzhia, and Kherson. Ukraine could potentially take advantage of the gaps in Russia’s redeployment—particularly in Kherson, Luhansk, or Kharkiv, where UAF units have been actively conducting localized smaller offensive maneuvers.

The Psychological Effect on the Russian Public

The UAF offensive on Kursk is not only strategic in drawing Russia’s military reserves out of Ukraine but also psychological for the general Russian public. Assuming the war would never come to their side of the border, the Russian public remains shocked and disappointed at the Kremlin’s lack of response.

Vladimir Putin, the longtime autocrat of Russia, enjoyed popular support in the country due to his imperial irredentism, which sought to revive the Russian Empire and make the country feared and respected internationally. Putin himself rose to power thanks to the controversial and dubious Ryazan Bombings, in which his FSB may have been involved.

As the first Kremlin leader to be enshrined with an invasion conventional army since Josef Stalin, Putin’s strongman aura could deteriorate further. The name of Kursk is already haunting Putin as his negligence led to the submarine disaster in 2000, along with the lack of care for the sailors’ deaths.

Another major psychological effect is that Ukraine captured more territory in Russia with minimal manpower than the Russian army has, with hefty casualties in the Donbas region in 2024. The gains could further demoralize the military and be the start of dissent within the main units.

Putin himself is already witnessing casualty rates not seen since World War Two and was forced to withdraw Russia’s prized Black Sea Fleet from Crimea this summer. Not reaching any key objectives in Ukraine and now facing increasing pressure inside of Russia, Putin could face even more pushback from the general public or hardliners akin to Yevgeny Prigozhin ‘s Wagner mutiny last year.

Showing Western Partners Ukraine isn’t out of the Fight

After Ukraine’s 2023 counteroffensive failed to achieve critical objectives of pushing towards Melitopol and severing the Russian invasion force in half, Western analysts and some leaders doubted whether Ukraine could retake their 1991 borders fully through military means. The Kursk offensive could potentially be the turning point in the view that Ukraine is not out of the fight.

Despite slow-rolling Western aid to Ukraine, which became one of the reasons for Russian advances in places such as Avdiivka and Chasiv Yar, Kyiv has been resourceful, mainly hiding key aid and brigades from Russian counterintelligence view, who are now caught off guard by the UAF offensive capabilities.

Russia’s force projection is now being exhausted in not only Ukraine but other theaters such as Syria, Sudan, and Mali, where Russian mercenaries are also reeling from major setbacks due to the lack of resources that are now fully allocated to the war. With the fear of isolationists coming into power and in Europe and America that would try to force Ukraine into negotiations, Kyiv is showing that they are not fully on the defensive and can conduct major offensive maneuvers if given enough aid and support.

A Quietly Well-Planned Operation

The Kursk offensive differs greatly from Ukraine’s other border incursions or the 2023 counteroffensive. An operation as such took months to scope out the lack of Russian defensives and reserves in Kursk and key signals intelligence to determine equipment movement before giving the green light.

Two of Ukraine’s most-battled hardened units, the 22nd Mechanized Brigade and 82 Air Assault Brigade to Kursk. These two units were kept in reserves during the 2023 counteroffensive as Kyiv wanted an opening for their main forces before deployment, and Kursk is now that opening.

Ukraine’s counteroffensive, therefore, had to remain quiet and in key inner circles. Overall, military commander Colonel General Sryskyi and Military Intelligence Chief Lieutenant General Budanov planned this operation and more than likely only told a few commanders.

Akin to how Putin only told a few of his inner circle of his full-scale invasion in 2022, Ukraine’s command likewise did the same. Kyiv most likely kept the offensive away from several Western partners, fearing their plans could’ve been leaked and Russia tipped off.

Ukraine has already had trouble with battlefield plans being leaked, similar to how the 2023 counteroffensive was leaked from the Pentagon and how the Black Sea Fleet was saved from an attack because Elon Musk was informed of it.

Though Ukraine is keeping a media silence, and we can only speculate on its true goals of the offensive, several things are clear. The Kremlin’s military command is in disarray and looking for scapegoats to blame, and the Russian general public feels a sense of vulnerability not seen since Operation Barbarossa.

Putin’s reign of terror started with his indifference to the fate of his sailors in the Kursk submarine disaster, and Ukraine’s current offensive in the oblast could be the beginning of the strongman’s decline.

About the Author: Julian McBride

Julian McBride is a forensic anthropologist, SOFREP contributor, and independent journalist born in New York. He reports and documents the plight of people around the world who are affected by conflicts, rogue geopolitics, and war, and also tells the stories of war victims whose voices are never heard. Julian is the founder and director of the Reflections of War Initiative (ROW), an anthropological NGO which aims to tell the stories of the victims of war through art therapy. As a former Marine, he uses this technique not only to help heal PTSD but also to share people’s stories through art, which conveys “the message of the brutality of war better than most news organizations.” McBride is also a Contributing Editor to this publication. 

Written By

Julian McBride, a former U.S. Marine, is a forensic anthropologist and independent journalist born in New York. He reports and documents the plight of people around the world who are affected by conflicts, rogue geopolitics, and war, and also tells the stories of war victims whose voices are never heard. Julian is the founder and director of the Reflections of War Initiative (ROW), an anthropological NGO which aims to tell the stories of the victims of war through art therapy. As a former Marine, he uses this technique not only to help heal PTSD but also to share people’s stories through art, which conveys “the message of the brutality of war better than most news organizations.”

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