Has Ukraine’s bold offensive on August 6 into Russia’s Kursk region, leveraging surprise and speed to quickly bypass Russian defensive lines, turned out to be a pyrrhic victory? Will the costs incurred in winning the battle in Kursk and their future repercussions diminish or enhance the prospects of Ukraine winning the much bigger war against Russia?
It seems that these questions have become a favorite topic for discussions among strategic elites worldwide. Predictably, answers have differed.
This piece essentially summarizes these varying arguments, leaving the readers to have their own conclusions.
Some, like Orysia Lutsevych, deputy director of the Russia and Eurasia program and head of the Ukraine forum at Chatham House, see the Kursk offensive as a great triumph for Kyiv, which has “humiliated” Russian President Vladimir Putin. Never in recent history has any foreign power militarily transgressed into Russian territory.
After all, more than a month into the attacks, Ukrainian forces are holding Russian territory and continuing offensive operations. They have taken hundreds of Russian soldiers as prisoners and assert to consolidate a defensible buffer inside Russia.
Piotr Śledź of the University of Warsaw argues that the Kursk Offensive is arguably a more psychological operation than purely military. “It is a morale boost that Ukrainian citizens and troops needed after months of Russian onslaught involving hundreds of drones and missiles striking civilian locations and critical infrastructure. That is crucial for its capacity to mobilize manpower, which seems increasingly challenging”.
For defense journalist Stavros Atlamazoglou, territorial gains in Kursk give Kyiv a bargaining chip for seeking Russian withdrawal from internationally recognized Ukrainian territory now.
“By invading Russia, the Ukrainian leadership took a gamble. The ultimate goal wasn’t to capture and annex Russian land. Rather, the objective was to create such a threatening and humiliating situation for the Russian military, forcing the Kremlin to draw troops from the contact line in Ukraine to deal with the threat. (The latest estimates put the number of Russian troops in Ukraine, including the Crimean Peninsula, at between 400,000 and 500,000.) As a result, Ukrainian forces in Ukraine would have an easier time defending. In addition, Kyiv would have some bargaining power in the form of captured Russian land in the event of negotiations”, he points out.
Michael Kofman, a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and Rob Lee, a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, argue that besides demonstrating Ukraine’s strength and challenging the narrative of Russian invincibility, the success in Kursk could influence the cautious American policymakers on the eve of their presidential elections.
The idea is “unlocking additional material assistance and altering the West’s weapons restrictions.” Ukraine’s leaders judged that the Kursk success would lead to relaxation in American pressure on them to agree to negotiations with Moscow. Thus, the Kursk Offensive will spur a change in the perception of Ukrainian abilities.
Second School Of Thought
However, there is a different school of thought that says it is a matter of time before Ukraine shifts its troops from Kursk and redeploys them back to Eastern Ukraine, where Russian forces are making steady advances.
According to the latest report from the Economist magazine, Russia, for the past two months, has poured most of those resources into attacking the logistical hub of Pokrovsk, just north-west of Kurakhove. The center of the fighting has moved to the towns of Ukrainsk and Halytsynivka, about 15km north of Kurakhove, both visible from a distance by the plumes of dark smoke.
As one writes this, Russia claims that its armed forces had gained full control of Novohradska. The small town lies less than 9km from Pokrovsk, a strategically important city in eastern Ukraine because of its rail and road links. Russian soldiers have been advancing rapidly from the east as they consolidate control of the Donbas region.
It may be noted that Pokrovsk is a crucial logistical and transportation hub in the Donbas region (Donetsk is its capital city), sitting at the crossroads of major road and rail networks vital for the supply and reinforcement of Ukrainian positions throughout the eastern front.
If Russian forces capture Pokrovsk, they would effectively cut off these critical supply lines, isolating Ukrainian units defending other key areas in Donetsk.
According to Andrew Latham, a senior fellow at the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy and a non-resident fellow at Defense Priorities in Washington, D.C., the loss of Pokrovsk could have a cascading effect, leading to a broader collapse of Ukrainian defenses in the Donetsk region.
Ukrainian troops in these areas rely heavily on the supply routes passing through Pokrovsk for ammunition, reinforcements, and logistical support. Any disruption to these supply lines could severely compromise their ability to hold their ground against Russian advances, potentially allowing Russia to make further gains in eastern Ukraine and altering the course of the conflict.
From a military perspective, Latham argues that the incursion into Kursk has not yielded any significant gains for Ukraine. Rather than forcing Russia to divert substantial forces away from its main effort in Donetsk, it has resulted in the diversion of some of Ukraine’s best troops and advanced equipment away from the most strategically critical frontlines.
This shift has not only weakened Ukraine’s defensive posture in the Donetsk region but has also exacerbated existing manpower shortages, compounding the challenges Ukrainian forces face in holding key defensive positions.
“For Ukraine, the Kursk operation represents a missed opportunity to consolidate its defensive positions in the east. And for Russia, the Kursk incursion may be viewed as a strategic victory, not because of any direct military engagement in Kursk but because it has drawn Ukrainian resources away from more critical fronts. By maintaining their focus on Donetsk, Russian forces have been able to press their advantage, potentially opening new opportunities to exploit Ukrainian vulnerabilities along the eastern front”, Latham points out.
“For Russia, continued focus on strategic targets such as Pokrovsk reflects a broader strategy aimed at consolidating gains in eastern Ukraine. The capture of key logistical hubs and transportation networks would significantly bolster the Russian position and potentially pave the way for further advances into Ukrainian-held territory, perhaps leading to a decisive breakthrough”, he adds.
Some analysts have also pointed out that to win the battle in Kursk, Ukraine has utilized the services of its better and most experienced troops, with the backbone drawn from Ukraine’s elite Air Assault Forces. Some have been pulled off the frontlines in Donetsk and Kharkiv, where they were fighting against a Russian advance, whereas others would have served as an important reserve to stem Russian momentum.
And despite all that the fact, as Kofman and Lee remind, remains that the Kursk offensive has not encircled or destroyed substantial Russian forces, which would lead to captured equipment and ruined offensive capability. The prisoners Ukraine has taken are primarily border guards, conscripts, and Akhmat units—paramilitary Chechen units ostensibly under the Russian National Guard. And some Russian conscripts have already been exchanged with Moscow for Ukrainian prisoners of war.
“The offensive does not redress the current material imbalance in the war. For now, Russia retains an advantage in manpower, equipment, and ammunition. This advantage has not proved decisive or led to operationally significant breakthroughs, but Russian forces have steadily gained 750 square miles of territory since October 2023, and they have kept advancing in the weeks since Ukraine pushed into Kursk. Recently, the pace of that advance has accelerated, and Ukraine’s position looks increasingly precarious along parts of the front.
“If anything, Russia is likely to maintain offensive pressure along the frontline while building up forces to eventually counterattack at Kursk. A Russian attack could be more effective in the winter once the dense foliage in tree lines used by Ukrainian forces for concealment dissipates”, Kofman and Lee argue.
In other words, Russia not repelling Ukrainian forces from Kursk is said to be not an indication of its helplessness but a clear and deliberate move to achieve its bigger goal in Eastern Ukraine.
It can recover Kursk without much difficulty. And with the overall war in Ukraine becoming “a war of attrition” – a prolonged period of conflict during which each side seeks to gradually wear down the other by a series of small-scale actions to the point of collapse- Russia stands a better chance, given its better manpower, weapons and technological resources.
However, Russia could experience some adverse lateral impacts because of Ukraine’s symbolic victory in Kursk and Putin’s tolerance of it. Dr. Mark N. Katz, a Global Fellow at the Wilson Center, makes an important point when he says that “other actors besides Ukraine might see Putin’s seemingly tolerance of the Ukrainian occupation of Russian territory as an opportunity.
“Could Putin now respond effectively to a declaration of independence by the hitherto pro-Russian rulers of Chechnya or any—much less all—other Muslim republics in Russia’s North Caucasus?
“Similarly, could Putin respond effectively to a move by Lukashenko, or the leaders of a military coup that ousted him, to throw off Belarus’s alliance with Russia and seek Western support?
“Could Putin even respond effectively to a move by Moldova, perhaps aided by Ukraine, to retake the Russian-dominated Transnistria region?”
These are pertinent questions, indeed!
- Author and veteran journalist Prakash Nanda is Chairman of the Editorial Board – EurAsian Times and has been commenting on politics, foreign policy, on strategic affairs for nearly three decades. A former National Fellow of the Indian Council for Historical Research and recipient of the Seoul Peace Prize Scholarship, he is also a Professor at Reva University, Bangalore.
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