It is now a reality, one that has lasted more than 10 days: Ukraine has been able to retain the territories it has conquered in Russia. The Ukrainian army has taken control of about 1,150 km2 of the Kursk region and now some areas in the Belgorod region. Both are neighbouring regions with Ukraine, and from there Russia has been launching many missiles into the Donbas in the last two years. The last reports can show that the Ukrainian army is making advances of 1.5 km on average per day deep into Russian territory. At least two brigades from the regular Ukrainian forces with some 10,000 soldiers have participated. These forces are mechanized, highly mobile and protected by significant air defense.
Kyiv now controls a total of 82 localities on the territory of the Russian Federation. Putin’s government has declared a state of emergency in its Kursk and Belgorod regions. About 180,000 civilians in both regions have been evacuated, and the situation has been an embarrassment for the Kremlin. Due to supply bottlenecks, a big amount of the Russian population in Kursk has not yet been able to pick up food rations, nor to receive the 10,000 rubles (around €100) promised by the state for any person that has been forced to evacuate the region.
Additionally, Ukraine has captured at least 102 Russian soldiers in the Kursk region, which they need to continue prisoner's exchange. Moreover, the Ukrainian army has established a military command office in Sudzha, a Russian village of 5,000 inhabitants, which signals the intention of defending the gained territories. Ukraine forces say that they are providing humanitarian aid to civilians in territories they control in Russia and act in accordance with international law, adding also that Kyiv is now preparing to accept refugees from Russia’s Kursk region.
The Ukrainian incursion in Russian territory was preceded by the gradual deployment of more soldiers to the border. Officers were told not to wear uniforms to avoid attracting attention. Kyiv's plans were kept secret even from soldiers, and some units were not told until the last moment. British Challenger 2 tanks are thought to have been used in Ukraine’s surprise incursion into Russia. Western officials said that after "consultation among legal experts within NATO countries" it has been concluded that "the right to self defense also covers the right to counter-attack".
On the same line of discourse, Zelenskyy has repeated that "Russia must be forced to make peace", adding "Russia brought war to others, now it's coming home". The Ukrainian foreign ministry stated that "unlike Russia", Ukraine is not interested in taking the territory of its neighbor. He said "the purpose of the operation is to save the lives of our people and protect the territory of Ukraine from Russian strikes".
As a response to the Ukrainian invasion in Kursk, Putin has appointed his former bodyguard, Alexei Dyumin, to lead the Russian operation to repel Ukrainian troops. The official response from the Kremlin has been to say that “the Kyiv regime is continuing its terrorist activity with the sole purpose of intimidating the peaceful population of Russia" and that the incursion "makes no sense from a military point of view.”
Currently, Moscow has cut off the power supply to all these 82 gained localities in order to stop the Ukrainian troops. Putin and the Kremlin officials have referred to the incursion as a “situation”, a “terrorist attack” and “the events in Kursk region”, but not making a big deal about foreign troops occupying Russian territory for the first time since the Second World War.
However, as Ukraine is making advances in Russia, Putin’s forces have captured more territory around Ukraine's Donetsk region in the last 10 days since the incursion in Kursk began on August 6, but Russian gains in Ukraine in 2024 have been less than Ukraine’s 1150 km2 in Russia.
The Ukrainian incursion in Russia has the following purpose:
It boosts Ukrainian morale, it creates newspaper headlines that allow to keep Western taxpayer support to fund Ukraine's defense, Ukraine gains militarily credibility, and allows Nato to have more leverage in its direct attacks against Russia. Additionally, it puts pressure on Putin internally as this attacks show that his government not able to fully protect its citizens and exposes incompetence in the military capacities and civilian leadership in the evacuations. But more importantly, these gains will be used by Ukraine to negotiate a peace deal by which Russia could not keep all the territories it controls in Ukraine.
Since the full-scale war erupted in February 2022, the West has restricted the capacity of weapons delivered as military aid to Ukraine so those can’t be used to target long-distance objectives deep into Russia for fear of provoking Putin. But, as with previous threats made by Russia about “crossing red lines that would lead to WW3”, the incursion in Kursk with western weapons has shown that the Kremlin bluffs on many occasions. According to this logic, restricting Kyiv's ability to defend itself is not a good strategy and the quickest way to end the war is by arming Ukraine for victory. According to Russia, 12 of its civilians have perished in the Ukrainian incursion.
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