Ukraine’s Freedom Hasn’t Yet Perished

On August 6, 2024, Ukraine unexpectedly brought in some 10,000 of its military into Russia's Kursk region.
The Russians (and Ukraine's allies in the West) were unprepared for such impudence. Within several days, the Ukrainian armed forces almost unhindered have seized and keep holding about 400 square miles of Russian territory until now, and apparently have no intention of leaving.
The Ukrainians have also allegedly captured about 2,000 Russian soldiers during the raid.

Ukraine did not acknowledge the raid for several days, but on August 11, President Zelensky had said at last that it was the work of Ukrainians and the purpose of the operation in Kursk region was to create a buffer zone on Russian territory.
The appearance of foreign troops on the territory of the USSR-Russia has not happened since World War II.

Ukraine's Western partners have generally reacted quite calmly to the actions of the Ukrainian authorities.

The reaction of residents of the Kursk region to the incursion was rather embarrassed: «why did our state allow this?»

The state-controlled Russian media first tried to downplay the significance of the Ukrainian attack, but failed. Independent Russian news websites, YouTube channels and even pro-war Telegram channels circulated reports and videos making it clear the Russian army was caught off guard, forcing Mr. Putin to respond. 

Mr. Putin named the incursion a “large-scale provocation” and appointed his aide and former chief bodyguard (not the military) to oversee the Kremlin's defense of Kursk. The Russians are also evacuating their population (over one hundred thousand people!) from the Kursk region.

Russia has transferred several thousand servicemen (including conscripts whom Mr. Putin promised not to use in the war) to the Kursk region, without removing the best troops from the priority Donetsk area. However, this number is clearly insufficient to expel Ukrainians from the Russian territory.

The Ukrainians have sharply raised the stakes in the war.

So far, only Mr. Putin has done so, and Ukrainians only reacted. Now it is the other way around. A Ukrainian surprise incursion could end very seriously for both Russia and Ukraine.
Yes, similar raids have been carried out before, but they were pure raids – a few units crossed the Russian border, fought a little, took pictures against the background of Russian villages, and left a few days later. And they were conducted by Russian volunteers fighting as part of the Ukrainian armed forces — «Russian Volunteer Corps » and the “Freedom of Russia Legion”.

The current Ukrainian incursion is fundamentally different: Ukrainian troops have entered with the apparent intention of gaining a foothold on Russian territory since they even began to create there a military administration to provide humanitarian aid to civilians and maintain law and order.

No one knows how this will end, but the situation looks like close to «do or die» for both sides. In order to expel 10 thousand Ukrainian soldiers from the Kursk region, the Russians need to create there a 2-3 times advantage in manpower, that is 20-30 thousand of their troops, and not just conscripts, but experienced, battle-hardened soldiers. It is not desirable for Mr. Putin to take them off the Donetsk area, where the Russians have some success now, but using reserves and unprepared conscripts from all over the country may not give the needed result.

It is simply impossible to ignore the situation in Kursk region. With each passing day, the presence of Ukrainian troops on Russian soil is turning more and more into an invasion and is becoming a big problem for Mr. Putin as it destroys the false picture of a “mighty country” and “God's chosen people” he created for the Russians.

However, Ukraine is also at risk. If the Russians do manage somehow to send enough troops to the Kursk region without weakening its offensive in the Donetsk region, they can cut off the raid forces from Ukraine and surround them. Then Russia will be able to win both battles. As for now, it is the initiator of this incursion, Ukraine, which is getting significant military, political and moral dividends from it.

Military dividends.

- The incursion could force the Russians to relieve pressure in Donbass and northern Kharkiv region. The Ukrainians have now seized the initiative and a situation of mutual capture has arisen: the Russians do not want to withdraw their troops from Donetsk (but may have to), and the Ukrainians are using troops in their incursion that could be used in Donbass, where the Russians are succeeding in their offensive. Whoever manages to cover both directions of their fighting will win much.

- About 400 square miles of Russian territory is under Ukrainian control. A small town of Sudzha is captured which is an administrative center of Sudzhansky District of Kursk region, where the Ukrainian military administration is now located. There is an important railroad line from Sudzha that supplies the Russian Army Group “North». Ukrainian control of Sudzha will complicate the supply of this group since the Russians will have to supply it through Belgorod.

- The Ukrainian Armed Forces have blown up several bridges over the Seim River and may actually encircle a Russian grouping of up to 3,000 militants in the Kursk region.

- The Ukrainian incursion may reach the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant and create the nuclear threat there, similar to the one the Russians are creating at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine. This is something Russia fears very much. The Kursk Nuclear Power Plant is one of the three biggest nuclear power plants in Russia, one of the four biggest electricity producers in the country and it is about 30 miles from the Ukrainian-held town of Sudzha.

- Ukraine and Russia have started negotiations on the exchange of prisoners of war captured in Kursk Region. Previously, the Russians had not been very active in these matters.

Political dividends.

- The Kursk region incursion shows Ukrainian allies in the West that 1) Ukraine is still strong and 2) they should not be afraid of strikes on Russian territory and to eventually lift restrictions on the use of Western weapons there since Ukrainian troops are already on Russian territory.

- The operation in the Kursk region has made any negotiations between Ukraine and Russia on a ceasefire/holding fire impossible so far.

- Capturing and holding part of Russian territory will certainly strengthen Ukraine's position in the peace talks that are coming sooner or later.

- Mr. Putin showed his weakness and uncertainty: he did not officially declare war on Ukraine for seizing Russian territory (it is still a “special military operation”) or scare the world community with a “tactical nuclear strike”. He clearly does not want to aggravate relations with the West and with his own population, but apparently it will not be possible to avoid them completely.

- Russia is no longer a “superpower” since the “weak” Ukraine is dominating part of its territory. China, Turkey and other neutral states should have a reasonable question: does Russia have the right to its “zone of influence”?

Moral dividends.

For Ukraine, in my opinion, they far exceed any costs, because the incursion destroys the foundations of Putin's false ideology. The empires are hard to collapse from the outside and much easier from the inside, and that is what Ukraine is doing now with its raid: it is sowing doubts among Russian citizens about the rightness and purposefulness of this war. And if the empire collapses, it falls as a whole and at once, like the USSR did in 1991.

The incursion of Ukrainians in the Kursk region really undermines the fundamental belief of Russians in “greatness of Russia”, power of their army and is the strongest slap in the face for Mr. Putin personally. He can't declare the presence of the “weak” Ukrainian army on “Russian soil” as a victory, while he can explain everything else to his population: even his 2+ year-long «special military operation» he attributes to Russia's war against the entire West. With every Ukrainian success, more and more Russians start to see the real picture of the war (and also due to the constant arrival of coffins from Ukraine).

In wars, the one with the stronger spirit wins. Demonstratively moving the fighting to Russian territory and forcing the Russians to evacuate their population exposes Russia's weakness to the whole world. This greatly strengthens the spirit of Ukrainians and weakens it in Russians.
If Ukrainian troops hold out in Kursk region for a few more months and defeat Mr. Putin's attempts to regain control of Russian territory, this could lead to large centrifugal movements in the regions of the Russian Federation and the breakup of the country. The central and regional elites get only restrictions from the war in their usual way of living and may start inciting the people to revolt.

It is impossible to speak now of any meaningful rebellion against the Putin's regime. The civil society does not practically exist in Russia, but …
On August 13, 2024, the Telegram channel “Nexta” published an interesting video of the founder of the Russian private military company “Paladin” Georgy Zakrevsky. He blamed all the failures on the front and Russia's internal problems on Mr. Putin personally. This is an extraordinary event and nothing like this has ever happened before in Putin’s Russia. Even the murdered owner of PMC “Wagner” Mr. Prigozhin opposed the leaders of Ministry of Defense, but not personally the “Tsar”.
God willing, a spark will ignite a flame. Russia and Putin personally should be punished for their brutal war in Ukraine, but life (God) has a different logic and injustice often goes unpunished.
……….

P.S. I wish the Ukrainians success in their just war, but I still stand by my opinion: Mr. Putin will not win this war as he imagined that, but he will not lose it. The war has reached a stalemate and both belligerents are quite exhausted by it.
Most likely, with such an international contradictory attitude towards the war and the internal division of its own nation, Ukraine will not return to the borders of 1991 or even of February 23, 2022; it will have to give up a part of its territory to the Russians and wait for the next invasion.

However, sometimes miracles happen. They should be prepared and Ukrainian incursion in Kursk region is a good example of such preparation.