“They want to push Russia to the limit”

A Ukrainian soldier tears off the Russian flag on a building and puts in its place the famous yellow and blue banner. It is one of the images that will remain in the memory of the Kursk Raid by Ukrainian forces. The offensive, which began last week, is already considered the most important for kyiv since 2022 and has achieved to raise the morale of some troops who have been immersed in for months a war of attrition.

After several months of Russian advances on the front, Ukraine has managed to surprise its enemy with the border offensive that has put Moscow’s military strategy in jeopardy and that has returned to kyiv an offensive positionSince Ukrainian tanks and other armored vehicles crossed the border on August 6, troops have managed to take control of nearly 1,000 square kilometers of Russian territory. In total, 74 settlements ofand the Kursk region are under their control, tens of thousands of people have been evacuated and nearly 100 Russians have been detained as prisoners of war.

“We have once again proven that we, Ukrainians, are capable of achieve our goals in any situation, capable of defend our interests and our independence,” said the president Volodímir Zelenski in one of his first references to the border offensive.

Beyond the military achievements on Russian territory, analysts have launched speculations about the possible strategy behind the operation. What virtually everyone agrees on is that Ukraine wants to force Russia to mobilize its troops from the front lines where they are advancing. to relieve pressure on kyiv’s defenses. According to some Ukrainian and American officials, Moscow has already begun to do so. “Russia has relocated some of its units from the regions of Zaporiyia and Jershon in southern Ukraine,” said Dmytro Lykhoviy, a spokesman for the Ukrainian military, to POLITICIAN.

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Fermin Torrano. Donetsk region. Kharkov region M. Redondo Map: Emma Esser

This strategy may jeopardize the battles of the summer offensive in which Russia has the advantageHowever, this tactic can also slow down one of the military phenomena that they fear most Kiev forces. At the end of last year, the counteroffensive did not achieve the expected results and some fronts such as Avdiivka reached a stalemate. Valery Zaluzhny himself, former commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, suggested that, as in World War I, “we have reached the level of technology that puts us in a position to face the enemy.” a stalemate. Most likely there will not be a breakthrough.”

This scenario is one of the worst for Ukraine because it gives Russia time to rearm and regroup military resources, in order to be able to attack with greater force later. And this is precisely the scenario that the troops in kyiv would like to avoid. “Ukraine’s strategic goal is to maximize the attrition of Russian forces while they are on the defensive and push them to the limit. They want to prevent them from taking an operational pause and, if they are in Kursk, force the Russians to try expel Ukrainian soldiers of the region. If the Ukrainian Armed Forces entrench themselves in the region and begin to defend it, the Russians will have to attack it despite their offensive capabilities. are exhausted“, he explains Ruslan TradAtlantic Council researcher and military analyst, told El Confidencial.

Moscow would send part of its troops in the direction of Kursk as soon as possible because the longer it takes to do so, the more time it would give to the Ukrainian forces. so that they take up more kilometers from its territory. But Russia would also bet on keeping part of its soldiers on the fronts where it is making progress“For Ukraine, the Kursk operation is, on the one hand, an operation to divert Russian forces from the Ukrainian front and, on the other, to force them to continue the offensive after having exhausted their reserves,” Trad continues.

Emergency call from Kursk

Part of this hypothetical Ukrainian strategy has already begun to bear fruit. Ukrainian military spokesman Dmytro Lykhovii, He said that Russia had moved some units of the regions from Zaporizhia and Dnipro to other areas such as Kursk. A US official confirmed a movement of Russian troopsbut not specific or the location nor the number of soldiers that would be involved.

Even though some soldiers may have been mobilized, Moscow would be looking avoid a massive deployment of units in regions such as Donetsk. “The Russians are reluctant to do so, because it would jeopardize all the gains of their summer offensive campaign,” said Serhii Kuzan, president of the Ukrainian Center for Security and Cooperation, an independent research group, a The New York Times.

For this reason, they would be betting on mobilize Russian prisoners (a measure that they have already used before and that was popularized by the Wagner Group) and military units that are in areas where military successes are limiteda report from Institute for the Study of War.

Additionally, the Lithuanian Defence Minister, Laurynas Kasciunasclaimed that Russia was moving troops from its Baltic enclave de Kaliningrad to Kursk. The President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenkoalso ordered the transfer of part of his country’s military equipment to Kursk to reinforce the defenses on this new front line. The delivery is related to “an urgent request from the Russian side” due to to losses and lack of equipment in it oblast Russian and on other front lines, the Belarusian media reported Belnovosti.

Unbelievable.

About 100 Russian troops, basically an entire company, surrendering to Ukraine in Kursk Oblast.

We have never seen anything like this before. pic.twitter.com/h3d6AY8gPJ

— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) August 15, 2024

While Russia reorder your resources to counter the Kursk incursion, tensions have not eased, for now, on the Ukrainian front. A group of kyiv officers said that Russian troops have continued followed by Chasiv Yar, New York, Pokrovsk and Toretsk. For his part, the spokesman for the 32nd Independent Mechanized Brigade, which is located on the Toretsk front, said that the border offensive “has not yet had any impact on the density of assaults and shelling in our direction,” the article quotes. de The New York Times.

In Kursk, meanwhile, kyiv continues to maintain the pressure. Last Wednesday, the city of Belgorod a state of emergency was declared Following new attacks by the forces of kyiv and its governor, Viacheslav Gladkovadmitted that the situation was “difficult and tense”.

If Ukraine manages to continue advancing and put Russian troops on the ropes on its own territory, it will be able to continue exploiting a possible burnout of Moscow’s forces. The effects have not yet reached the front, but the Kursk raid may be part of the war of attrition that Russia has exploited so much in recent months.

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Especially in battles like that of Bakhmutthe Kremlin used soldiers as cannon fodder to bring the Ukrainians to the brink of military exhaustion. In the case of Kursk, Ukraine could force Russia to divide its attention and resources across the different front lines in an attempt to boycott their future advances.

The chances of achieving this objective depend on the troops that kyiv can use for the offensive in Kursk. Its forces are stretched to the limit, but only with the operation of this last week have the Ukrainian troops avoided a scenario that they warned about. Mark Cancian, Senior Fellow at the Center for International Strategic Studies (CSIS), in a previous interview with El Confidencial. “A failed offensive and a stalemate on the front would create fears that this is a an eternal war and that the cost and suffering will continue indefinitely,” he warned.

Kursk has moved Ukraine away from its defensive position and put it at the centre of a scenario that, until a few weeks ago, It seemed very unlikely. War has come to Russia and the The rules of the game of this war have changed. “Ukraine began by attacking targets in the Russian rear with drones, then by carrying out raids, and now by an operation involving entire brigades. The transfer of hostilities to Russian territory is a tool to put pressure on the Kremlin“And that is what he is doing,” Ruslan Trad concludes to this newspaper.