Written by (Mohamed Al-Baba)
In August of last year, Ukrainian forces carried out a surprise attack on the Russian Kursk province, where they took control of dozens of villages and captured hundreds of Russian soldiers. This is the first time that foreign forces have entered and occupied Russian territory since World War II.
This incursion was described as a “radical shift” in the course of the war.
The Russian Kursk province has witnessed a noticeable escalation in recent months through Ukrainian military activities, which raised questions about the motives and objectives of this incursion.
Ukraine seeks through this operation to achieve several strategic goals; the most important of which is to distract Russian forces away from the front lines in Ukraine, especially in the Donbas province, where Russia has made slow progress in 6 months.
Ukraine considers control of Russian territory a pressure card to use in future negotiations, in light of Russia’s failure in the field, and calls to end the war through negotiations.
Ukraine also wants to boost the morale of the Ukrainian forces and people by achieving tangible victories on the ground after the Russian attack in the eastern regions and delaying the receipt of military aid from the allies, with the failure of the Ukrainian counterattack after the plans were leaked to the Kremlin.
But the surprise was the relatively slow Russian reaction, as the local authorities in Kursk declared a state of emergency in the province, and ordered the evacuation of up to 121,000 people from the region, and another 11,000 people were transferred from the neighboring Belgorod province for fear of the Ukrainian expansion, as the Ukrainian forces made significant progress with the collapse of the Russian defenses, which demonstrated the fragility of the Russian forces’ defense plans on the border with the Ukrainian Kharkiv and Sumy provinces, in addition to the major intelligence failure of the Russian intelligence, which was unable to obtain information about the Ukrainian plan in Kursk. It is noteworthy that days before this attack, Russia transferred a number of military units in Kursk towards the Donetsk province.
This sudden Ukrainian attack, which quickly achieved its field objectives, posed major challenges for Russia, as a large number of logistical problems emerged despite Russia’s attempts to push Ukrainian forces away from the areas it controlled. One of the most important problems facing the Russian army in dealing with this Ukrainian incursion is the lack of necessary reserves, with the Russian military efforts focused inside Ukraine, as the Kremlin lacks sufficient reserves to expel Ukrainian forces from the Kursk region.
Even during this operation, the Russian Ministry of Defense was unable to convince Russian President Vladimir Putin to launch a new general mobilization to mobilize recruits to fight in the war for fear of popular backlash inside Russia, although the lack of human resources necessary to expel Ukrainian forces from Kursk requires sending tens of thousands of Russian troops to this region, which Russia currently seems to lack.
In an attempt to address these problems, Russia turned to its ally North Korea, where it brought in more than 20,000 soldiers from the North Korean army to fight in Kursk, and also in eastern Ukraine, but these military buildups did not provide a solution to the Ukrainian forces in the Kursk region. Ukraine says it has killed and captured a large number of them.
The Ukrainian incursion into Kursk Oblast marks a strategic shift in the conflict between the two countries, with Ukraine seeking military and political gains to impose a land-for-land equation.
In contrast, Russia faces significant challenges in dealing with this Ukrainian operation, adding new complexities to the geopolitical landscape in the region.
