For six months now, Ukrainian troops have been holding a part of Russian territory in the Kursk region under their control. Despite numerous attacks and casualties on the part of Russian troops, they have not yet managed to regain control of this territory. Even the involvement of North Korean troops has not helped Russia succeed. Kursk remains Ukraine’s trump card for the future.
Ukrainian troops first appeared on the territory of Erephia in the second year of the full-scale war. These were mostly small raids carried out by volunteer units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces consisting of Russian citizens. During the spring and summer of 2023, they conducted three major raids in the Bryansk and Belgorod regions, and in the spring of 2024 – in the Kursk and Belgorod regions. Although the volunteers managed to briefly take control of some Russian villages, they were unable to hold them for long.
The situation changed dramatically on August 6, 2024, when the Ukrainian Armed Forces broke through deep into Russian territory and took control of dozens of settlements. By August 27 , Ukraine had seized about 1,300 square kilometers, which exceeded the territory Russia managed to seize in all of 2023. According to Ukrainian Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi, 100 settlements, including the town of Sudzha, the administrative center of the Sudzha district, had come under Kyiv’s control by then.
Israeli retired officer and military observer Yigal Levin called the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ operation in the Kursk region “brilliant” and noted that any transfer of war to enemy territory, regardless of the methods, is always a competent and correct decision.
In the first few days after the start of the operation in the Kursk region, the Ukrainian Armed Forces encountered little to no serious resistance. Only after 10 days did Russian troops manage to deploy large enough contingents to the region to stop the Ukrainian offensive.
The Russian authorities initially tried to downplay the scale of the invasion. On August 6, the commander of the Akhmat special forces, Major General Apti Alaudinov, said that “the enemy was driven back with the help of reserves.” However, this was a lie – it was not possible to drive the Ukrainian Armed Forces out of the Kursk region.
On August 12, the Kremlin dictator demanded that the military push the Ukrainian Armed Forces out of Russian territory and even gave clear deadlines, like by the end of the month. However, this demand was never fulfilled.
On December 19, Putin decided not to name the “exact date when Ukrainian troops will be driven out.” As a result, neither by the end of December nor even by the end of January was it possible to drive the Ukrainian army out of the Kursk region. Subsequently, Putin almost stopped mentioning this situation.
Even the North Koreans did not help the Russians, who suffered up to 30% of the executions and were pulled to the rear, losing their combat capability. According to the Ukrainian media, Russia itself was preparing an offensive from the Kursk region of the Russian Federation to the Sumy region of Ukraine in the summer. Therefore, the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ operation can also be seen as a preventive strike and ensuring the security of the Ukrainian region.
Control over a part of Russian territory allows Kyiv to show that this is a Russian-Ukrainian war, and not an internal Ukrainian crisis, as Moscow is trying to present it. The fact of the war on the territory of Erephia, including strikes on oil refineries and other facilities, emphasizes that this is a Russian-Ukrainian conflict, not an internal Ukrainian one, as Russian propaganda would like to present.
The withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the Kursk region could be part of possible US-mediated negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. But control over a part of Russian territory makes Ukraine a subject rather than an object of negotiations, which is an important factor in the diplomatic process.
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