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Ukrainian troops have advanced around 30 km into the Russian territory of the Kursk region, in what has been Kyiv’s largest incursion on Moscow’s territory since the start of the war in 2022. On Sunday, in a video address, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the surprise attack, launched on August 6, was being carried out to “restore justice” and “push the war into the aggressor’s territory”.
What is happening?
Although no independent reports from the region are available, some suggest that Ukraine has already captured more land since the beginning of the attack than it did over the entire course of last summer’s counter-offensive.
Russian forces are currently engaged with Ukrainian troops near the villages of Tolpino and Obshchy Kolodez — which are about 25 km and 30 km from the Russia-Ukraine border, Russia’s defence ministry said in a statement on Sunday. The incursion involves three Ukrainian brigades — a total of six to eight thousand troops — sources told TVP World, a Poland-based news outlet.
Ukrainian soldiers have been posting videos on social media in which they claim to have captured a host of settlements in the Kursk region. The soldiers filmed themselves tearing down Russian flags in villages they have captured, or standing in front of road signs to show that they have entered a town.
Around 76,000 people have been evacuated from the region, where a state of emergency has been declared by local authorities, according to Russia.
Why has Ukraine launched the attack?
Currently, there is no clarity about the attack’s objectives. Military experts have said there could be several political and military reasons behind it.
Some experts suggest that Ukraine wants to seize as much land as possible to strengthen its position on the negotiation table. Ukrainian land captured by Russia could be exchanged for Russian land conquered by Ukraine.
It could also be possible that Ukraine wants to capture the Kursk nuclear power plant as a payback for Russia’s seizure of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant — it has been under Moscow’s control since 2022. The Kursk nuclear plant is just 60 km away from the Ukrainian border.
The incursion could be part of Ukraine’s effort to force Russia to redeploy its troops away from the east — the attack has come just weeks after Moscow captured several villages in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region. This could help relieve some pressure on Ukrainian troops posed in the east.
What happens next?
It is quite unlikely that Ukraine would be able to hold all of the Russian territory it has advanced on. To maintain its current position, Kyiv would need to send more troops, tanks, and resources to the region.
In an interview with Polish Press Agency, retired Polish General Roman Polko said, “At a moment when Ukrainian defenders in the east are being pushed back on several axes, the use of highly capable Ukrainian combat forces in Kursk is either a brilliant countermove to shift the momentum in the war, or a strategic error which compounds the challenges in Ukraine’s eastern Ukraine defensive operations”.
