Ukraine deals blow to Putin’s narrative with Kursk offensive

Ukraine’s offensive inside Russia’s Kursk region has opened a new chapter in the war that is threatening Moscow’s advantage across the 600-mile eastern front while redrawing the boundaries of the battle. 

Russian forces are struggling to beat back Ukrainian troops who are now digging into the territory they grabbed in a widely praised counteroffensive.

A week after the attack, Kyiv faces the questions of how and how long it will hold onto the seized territory as Russian President Vladimir Putin promises to push Ukraine back and punish them for the incursion. 

One problem plaguing Ukraine is a manpower shortage. Though the country lowered the draft age earlier this year, it will take time to replenish troops, and that could impact Ukraine’s ability to hold territory in Kursk. 

“It looks as if they want to hold on to this territory as long as they can,” said Angela Stent, a senior nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institution. Their success depends on their ability to supply troops, she said.

“They’re in the new mobilization drive, but they have to train the soldiers to get enough of the troops to stay there,” Stent said. 

Ukraine has taken around 386 square miles of Kursk, according to Kyiv, and is threatening Russia from multiple directions, notably around the key city of Sudzha, which Ukrainian forces may have already captured. Ukraine continues to advance in directions northwest and southeast of Sudzha. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reported Tuesday that 74 settlements have been taken in Kursk. 

Russian officials have said 180,000 people are evacuating from Kursk, which has been in a state of emergency since the Aug. 6 offensive.  

Putin has tasked the Federal Security Service (FSB), the Russian national guard and the military with restoring order to Kursk. 

But several experts said Putin faces challenges in winning back territory.

“This war has left Russia’s borders weak, the army engaged in Ukraine and not immediately available to defend border regions, and FSB border troops not supported,” said Dara Massicot, a senior fellow in the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, in a thread on the social platform X. “The Russian system’s instinct will be to overcorrect and swing harshly at Kursk.” 

Serhiy Grabskyi, a reserve Ukrainian army colonel, said “Russia simply does not have a defensive plan” for its border regions, which are large and hard to defend. 

“We found there is no plan in place,” he said. “It’s a huge disadvantage for Russians to have such big territories, because they are not able to control those territories.” 

Stent, from the Brookings Institution, said Russia was “so focused on the east” and the battles on Ukraine’s front that Moscow failed to account for a defense mission. 

“This shows us that there’s a lack of organization, there was a lack of proper preparation to this,” she said. “Maybe the Russians should have thought that the Ukrainians might pull off something like that, or they’ve underestimated the Ukrainians.” 

Putin on Monday vowed a “strong response” as he referred to the Kursk attack as a plot to “create discord and division within our society, to instill fear, and to undermine the unity and cohesion of the Russian people.” 

He also used the opportunity to blame the West for the incursion, part of his claims that the U.S. and NATO seek the destruction of Russia. 

White House national security spokesperson John Kirby hit back on Putin’s remarks in a Monday call with reporters. 

“Make no mistake about it, this is Putin’s war against Russia, and if he doesn’t like it, if it’s making him a little uncomfortable, then there’s an easy solution,” he said. “He can just get the hell out of Ukraine and call it a day.” 

The U.S. has supported the Ukrainian attack into Kursk, saying it is consistent with the Biden administration’s policy to allow Ukraine to defend itself against cross-border attacks. Kursk borders the northeastern Ukrainian region of Sumy, which neighbors Ukraine’s Kharkiv province, where Russian forces are still trying to advance. 

Ukraine is unlikely to try and hold onto the territory in Russia for a long period of time, even amid speculation that seized land could be used in negotiations. 

Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi said there were no plans for permanent occupation. 

“Unlike Russia, Ukraine doesn’t need something that belongs to someone else,” he said in remarks shared by state-run media. “Ukraine has no interest in taking over the territory of Kursk region, but we do want to protect the lives of our people.” 

Instead, Ukraine will likely hold out until a significant number of Russian troops are redeployed to defend Kursk and cause as much damage as possible. 

“Now they can try to dig in [for] a stout defense themselves, and really force the Russians to work and take a lot of casualties to take back the territory,” said John Hardie, deputy director of the Russia program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. 

But Ukraine also faces a risk, he added. 

“The risk is the Kursk offensive tying down more Ukrainian forces and potentially sucking in more resources than it perhaps was initially intended to,” he said, “especially if the offensive operation goes on for longer than was initially planned.” 

It’s unclear if Russia will redeploy a sizable number of troops from Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, where most of the fighting rages. But if they are forced to, Kyiv would consider that a major victory and potentially exploit it on the front lines. 

Matthew Savill, director of military sciences at the London-based think tank Royal United Services Institute, said the Kursk offensive has not yet “resulted in the Russians slowing their advances around the Donbas.” 

“This is a risky operation if the aim is more than a raid to disorientate Russian defenders,” he said in a recent written analysis. “The main risk is that the Ukrainians choose to try and consolidate and hold ground that lengthens the front line, where the Russians already have a personnel advantage, without the ability to reinforce and defend against Russian counter-attacks.”

One particular threat is Russian glide bombs, he noted, which have caused widespread damage among Ukrainian forces on the front lines. 

Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak also said another key goal of the offensive is to damage Russian ground assets used in border attacks. While Ukraine has done so with long-range strikes, an incursion like Kursk can cause more damage, he said.

“This is exactly what Ukraine can do and what is needed to protect the population of Ukraine in the border regions,” Podolyak wrote on X. 

It may take several more days or even weeks for Russia to restore order in Kursk as command and control operations get running.

Eventually, however, Russia will probably muster enough forces to root them out. 

Even if Ukraine withdraws, it has already demonstrated that Russia’s borders are weak and has dealt a blow to Putin’s narrative of the war, while threatening other neighboring regions such as Bryansk or Belgorod, said Grabskyi, the reserve colonel. 

“Our criteria of effectiveness of battle is elimination, destroying of enemy troops, not capturing and keeping those territories,” he said. “If we would be able to continue our raid, we will do that, if not, OK, we will withdraw. No problem at all. And we will find another weak point in [the] Russian border, and will attack.”