And again, the general embarrassment of the chain of command, which confirms the surprise of the General Staff and of the whole of Russia, wounded in its pride right where eighty years ago the largest tank battle in history took place, with the German panzers defeated by the Soviet T-34s, which gave Moscow the confidence of being able to beat the Nazis and fueled the national rhetoric about Russian invincibility.
This alone should be enough to understand how the Kremlin was caught off guard in a war that was slowly, through inertia or stubbornness, turning in its favor. Until yesterday, in fact, the time factor was on Moscow’s side, with the aggressor constantly conquering territory, wearing down Ukrainian forces and overwhelming them in numbers and weapons in practically every sector. This is why the incursion towards Kursk and Belgorod, in full Russian territory, is a “game changer” and can truly constitute a decisive factor in the continuation of the conflict. An unprecedented and unexpected attack that suggests that Ukraine still has resources – and above all strategies – greater than expected. This was already partly understood in 2022, when the failure to take Kiev demonstrated to the world the Russian disorganization and the fragility of its defenses (the almost immediate reconquest of the Kharkiv region that spring is there to testify to this). Now we are certain that doubts are starting to creep in among the Russians too, with more than a few generals wondering what sense there is in persisting with this crazy plan that Vladimir Putin demanded and decided almost on his own.
If the Ukrainian attack on Kursk was surprising because it was counter-intuitive, in reality this action does not represent anything new in the strategic line prepared by Kiev, which has always declared its intentions: “If Putin bombs Kiev, why can’t we hit Moscow?” Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said back in the spring of 2022. At the time, Kiev had neither the negotiating nor military strength to dare so much, also because the United States prohibited any action on Russian soil and the Europeans remained skeptical. Today, however, Ukraine has both the compactness of the West and, above all, the F-16s on its side. The fighter jets finally delivered to Kiev seem capable of doing a lot of damage to Russian defenses. Especially after the Ukrainian generals studied and understood the reasons why last summer’s coup by Evgenij Prigozhin – the head of the Wagner mercenaries who had turned against the Russian high command and who were stopped before they reached Moscow – failed: he had no cover. The same cover that warplanes can guarantee. And which, apparently, have been used (or will soon be) also in the Kursk sector.
TOAt the same time, the attempted coup revealed some of the Russians’ weaknesses: «We have carefully observed the dynamics of the revolt (of Wagner, ed.) and we have seen that Russia’s internal security systems are very weak, if not non-existent. Once you get past the defense lines around the Ukrainian border, moving around the country is relatively easy. Moscow is a sieve. Even the capital appears defenseless,” reports Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukrainian military intelligence. Apparently, in light of the Kursk raid, this is indeed the case. And the fact that Putin ordered the dropping of a thermobaric bomb – among the most deadly and powerful in the world – on Ukrainian soldiers who penetrated Russian soil does not erase the humiliation suffered. By now the omelette is done. The Ukrainians have advanced over 30 kilometers into the region and, to this day, they are still there (according to some sources, they are even building fortifications).
Now, while it is extremely unlikely that Ukraine is seeking to occupy Russian territory in the long term, it is certain that the minimum objective of the incursion is to draw Moscow’s forces away from the Kharkiv and Donetsk areas, where the Ukrainians are in serious trouble. And this is rapidly coming true: Russian bombs dropped in the Donetsk area have significantly decreased since then, soldiers on the front line report. This means that the planes carrying them are now elsewhere, trying to seal the violated border. Therefore, this easing maneuver can already be considered a clear victory (also psychological) for Kiev, especially after last year’s ineffective and disappointing counteroffensive, which ran aground before it even started and cost too many Ukrainian lives. Obviously, to make this gamble happen, Kiev was granted a sort of authorization by the West – both the US and the EU and the UK – for an operation of this size on Russian territory and for the use of Western weapons there too. Although similar incursions have already occurred in the past, this is the first time that regular Ukrainian forces have been used in this way.
That said, the Kursk incursion is unlikely to change the Russians’ minds about the need to continue the war, but the scale of the Ukrainian advance and its duration will tell us how effective its strategy has been. Meanwhile, it seems that the opening of the new front is more impressive than initially reported: hundreds of Russian soldiers taken prisoner, entire enemy columns wiped out, dozens of villages occupied. If it is true, as the Russian Ministry of Defense claims, that “1,610 Ukrainian soldiers died during the operation on Kursk”, and that Kiev also lost “32 tanks, 23 armored personnel carriers, 17 infantry vehicles and 136 armored combat vehicles”, this means that the forces employed by Ukraine in the sector are higher than estimated.
Already today it seems that at least three brigades are involved in the advance, for a total of around 10 thousand men, contrary to the initial reports which reported less than two thousand soldiers involved in the maneuver. The opening of the Belgorod front seems to confirm this information, as does the statement by Vladimir Putin himself that “Kiev’s attempts to destabilize the Russian border territories may soon extend to the Bryansk region” or even further north, towards the border with Belarus. The relative calm of the Bryansk region and the inactivity of the Belarusian armed forces (the Kremlin’s staunch allies) may not last, and therefore “we must prepare for different scenarios,” Putin himself added, quoted by the Ria Novosti agency.
We’ll see soon. In the meantime, the certainty is that Kiev is not tamed and does not seem willing to surrender. “The more pressure is put on the aggressor who brought the war to Ukraine,” President Zelensky stressed, “the closer peace will be.” Perhaps this second part is not true, but the Kremlin’s attempts to present the failure to defend its territory as evidence of why Russia should continue to wage its war do not convince anyone. Ultimately, as military analyst Mykhaylo Zhyrokhov suggests, for the time being “the events in the Kursk region have more questions than answers,” but at least one thing is certain: Moscow is neither impenetrable nor invincible. The myth on which Vladimir Putin had built his rise has fallen.
