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More than a week since Ukraine launched its lightning cross-border offensive against Russia, it has scored a series of victories for Ukraine, but the risks are growing as Ukrainian forces develop plans to hold territory and Russia regains its footing.
Ukraine last week sent thousands of troops to Russia’s western Kursk region and pulled down Russian flags in towns its soldiers have taken over, seizing the initiative in the war from Moscow for the first time in months.
On Wednesday (August 14), Kiev officials said Ukraine would use occupied Russian territory as a “buffer zone” to protect its north from Russian attacks. The commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Oleksandr Sersky, said on Thursday that Kiev had set up a military commander’s office in the occupied area of Kursk, indicating Ukraine’s intention to consolidate its territory.
The occupied area covers more than 1,150 square kilometers, Thursky said.
Former Ukrainian Defense Minister Andrei Zagorodniuk said in an interview that Ukraine’s goals in Kursk include distracting Russian forces from the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, where Russia has been steadily advancing for months and trying to completely occupy the area.
But there is no sign yet that this will happen.
Polish military analyst Konrad Muzyka said the invasion, the largest against Russia since World War II, not only dealt a blow to President Vladimir Putin’s reputation, but also destroyed Russian forces, captured soldiers who could be traded and inflicted trauma on Russia’s flank.
Russia’s Defense Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Ukraine’s Defense Ministry referred questions to the armed forces, which did not immediately respond.
Russian officials have called the Ukrainian attack on Russian territory a “terrorist incursion” that targeted civilian infrastructure, something Ukraine denies.
Putin said Russia would give a “due response” to the attack, but the immediate task was to expel all Ukrainian troops from Russian territory.
A Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman said this week that Ukraine has not said how long it will remain and has “no intention” of permanently occupying Russian territory. Putin has said Ukraine wants to use the territory as a bargaining chip in eventual peace talks.
Serhiy Zgurets, a Kyiv military analyst, predicted that Ukraine would seek to retain control of the land between the towns of Ryersk, Kolenyevoye and Sudja and the border, thereby controlling a roughly 20-kilometer-wide swath of Russian territory.
He said a small force using long-range artillery systems and air defense systems could defend the area.
“This line is not difficult to defend due to the few roads and many rivers,” Zgurets said, adding that the area can easily be supplied from Ukraine’s Sumy region across the border.
He said he did not expect troops to advance toward Kursk, the Russian regional capital, because that could expose the army to a flanking attack.
Muzyka was more cautious, warning that trying to hold onto large swathes of Russian territory could cost Ukrainian forces heavy losses, noting that manpower problems have plagued Ukraine for months in a war against a much more powerful foe.
Muzyka said the counter-invasion operation was “a huge gamble” but that in the short term it paid off.
“But a situation may soon emerge in which the costs of an attack on the Kursk region would outweigh its benefits, especially in light of Russia’s steady advance in the Donetsk region,” he said.
Russia’s response
Russia’s response to the early days of Ukraine’s offensive was chaotic, with tanks and Western-supplied armored vehicles moving along with convoys carrying troops across the border. Russia finally appears to be slowing its advance, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy saying on Wednesday that troops had advanced several kilometers.
A senior Russian commander said on Thursday that Ukrainian troops had been pushed out of a village in the Russian border region, but Kiev’s troops were still testing the front lines.
Satellite images from Planet Lab and Maxar show several apparently newly constructed Russian trenches in the Kursk region far from the border.
Russia has so far relied on military units around Kursk to push back Ukrainian forces, said Pasi Paroinen, an analyst at the Finnish Blackbird Group, which studies public footage of the Russian-Ukrainian war.
By taking the war to Russia, Zelensky risks weakening Kiev’s front-line defenses in Ukraine, while Russia has already sent thousands of reserve troops to try to dislodge Ukrainian soldiers.
Paroinen said Moscow should have enough reserves to respond without having to draw troops from the most intense fronts of the war in the Donbas region.
Former Defense Minister Zagorodniuk said Russia had been advancing slowly there for months, deploying large numbers of glide bombs and commandos but suffering heavy losses but making little progress.
Ukraine reported on Thursday that far from abating fighting in the east, the heaviest fighting in weeks broke out near Pokrovsk, and said there were no signs that Russian military pressure on the eastern front within its territory was easing.
Zelensky acquiesced to the growing pressure, ordering his top commanders on Wednesday to send more weapons to Pokrovsk and Toretsk, another troubled town Russia is trying to capture.
Dmytro, a 36-year-old Ukrainian soldier who was deployed to the Ukrainian side of the Sudja border during the invasion, said he hoped the war would end quickly and that the attack on Russia would put Ukraine on a more equal footing in any negotiations.
He said he believed the invasion was necessary to stop Russia from attacking Ukrainian territory across the border from the Kursk region, but he also felt uneasy about invading foreign territory.
“To be honest, it doesn’t feel good about what they (the Russians) did,” he said.
Read more by Euractiv
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