Zelensky, Kursk, Donbass

Recent developments in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict have been characterized by two distinct theaters of war, dominated by different political-strategic and military dynamics: the fronts in southeastern Ukraine stretching more than 900 kilometers between the Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, Luhansk, and Kharkiv regions; the front deployed since August 6 on an area of about a thousand square kilometers in the Russian Kursk region after the penetration of the Ukrainian offensive.

On the Ukrainian fronts, the advance of Russian troops accelerated dramatically in August. In Kherson, the rivals are separated by the Dnieper River, but the Russians’ superiority in aircraft and artillery has long allowed them to strike with precision Ukrainian positions, commands, and logistical centers on the right bank of the waterway.

Further east, in the Zaporizhzhia region, Russian pressure remains moderate and appears to be aimed at weakening the enemy by striking at its rear rather than achieving territorial gains. The Russians have moved some units from Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, and Donetsk regions into Kursk region that is under Ukrainian attack, but their numbers are not such as to change the balance of power, with the Russians attacking with greater numbers (and quality) in terms of trained troops, assets, and firepower. In addition, the opening of a new rail line running from Rostov to Mariupol along the Sea of Azov shortened the logistical lines feeding Russian forces, speeding up the movement of people and vehicles.

The Donetsk, Luhansk, and Kharkiv fronts have recorded the most notable territorial progress for the Russians, the slowness of which is related to the fact that the Ukrainians have fortified numerous urban and rural areas since 2014, when fighting in Donbass began. Since early August, some twenty locations have fallen into Russian hands, serving as a reversal of the last Ukrainian strongholds that are central to their defenses, seeking to cut the supply lines that feed them.

In recent days, Russian troops have penetrated the suburbs of Chasiv Yar, reached the urban area of Toretsk, and approached within a few kilometers of Pokrovsk (from where the Ukrainians have begun evacuating civilians) with an acceleration that has become more pronounced since the Ukrainian offensive on Kursk began. An aspect that is confirmed on the Luhansk and Kharkiv fronts as well. The further approach of Russian troops from the east to the Kupyansk stronghold must be combined with progress made in the north, after Russian troops penetrated from the Russian border into the Ukrainian neighborhood of Kharkiv in May, taking control of the territory that has been expanding in recent days, paradoxically coinciding with less use of air force, large numbers of which have been redeployed to the nearby Kursk region.

On the Ukrainian fronts, Kiev’s forces are suffering from a general shortage of personnel, weapons, and ammunition, but according to numerous reports from both Russian and Ukrainian military bloggers, they are suffering primarily from a lack of young and trained troops and reserves with which to replace battalions that have been on the front lines for many months.

The collapse of consensus on the war between the people and the Ukrainian leadership seems to be confirmed by at least 800,000 Ukrainians who are hiding to avoid conscription, according to estimates, reported in the Financial Times by Dmytro Natalukha, chairman of the Ukrainian parliament’s economic affairs committee. Meanwhile, cases of desertion investigated by judicial authorities since the beginning of the war amounted to 63 thousand, almost half of which were recorded in the first seven months of 2024. However, the real numbers could be much higher, and Kiev is under increasing pressure from some NATO allies for Ukraine to ensure that it recruits young people who are 18 years old instead of the current 25-year-olds.

In the skies, the Ukrainian Air Force has so far lost a large number of Russian-Soviet-type aircraft (Su-27, Su-25, Su-23, and MiG-29) that are still on alert. All the while, the long-awaited F-16s, supplied by some European governments and decommissioned after 40 years of service, are flying in very limited numbers over southern Ukraine, so far distancing themselves from the front line to stay out of range of Russian medium-range air defense. It is not even certain that the F-16s in service with Ukrainian colors are based on national territory, as the Russians suspect the use of an airport in Moldova or Fetesti in Romania, where Ukrainian pilots are trained.

Kiev also seems to be having trouble finding enough pilots and is looking abroad for F-16 pilots to join the International Legion, which has already provided Kiev with many thousands of volunteers – whom the Russians call “mercenaries” – but who are probably more accurately defined as international fighters wearing Ukrainian uniforms, also employed by various NATO countries to fight the Russians.

Of the roughly 12,000 Ukrainian soldiers who, according to Russian military sources as of August 15, entered Russia’s Kursk region, a significant portion were foreigners, as evidenced by some videos showing soldiers in Ukrainian uniforms talking to each other in English during the battle.

At the same time, as we suggested at the beginning, operations on the Kursk front have completely different characteristics than on the Ukrainian fronts. The attack ordered by Kiev, which apparently involved three army brigades (two mechanized and one full light infantry, fitted with the best Western equipment and the best-trained fighters) and one National Guard brigade, caught napping the Russian forces guarding the border with conscripts (whom Moscow is not using in the conflict in Ukraine) and border guards, who in Russia depend on the internal security services (FSB, formerly KGB), who reportedly surrendered in numbers of at least 300.

The impact of the Ukrainian attack was unprecedented. The Russians were already caught off guard by an attack in September 2022 that allowed the Ukrainians to regain lost territory in the Kharkiv region. Also in this case, Ukrainian tank columns quickly penetrated deep into unprotected Russian defensive lines, forcing the Kremlin to announce the mobilization of 300,000 reservists.

However, the attack on Kursk on August 6 looks even more serious, also from an image standpoint, since the Russian national territory has not been invaded since World War II: Moscow had to evacuate at least 120,000 civilians, leaving several thousand under Ukrainian occupation and declare a state of emergency because of “terrorism” in the border areas of Kursk, Belgorod, and Bryansk. To coordinate the efforts of the military, border guards, Russian National Guard, and civilian authorities, Vladimir Putin, in an apparent confusion, appointed one of his supporters, Alexei Dyumin, a former general and governor of Tula.

Many analysts in the West have also stressed that the Ukrainian forces, deployed to attack Kursk, would have been better used to bolster the shaky defenses of Donbass and that the losses suffered at Kursk will not be made up for, with the risk of a double defeat for Ukraine. Assessments that led some observers to compare the offensive at Kursk with the German offensive in the Ardennes in December 1944, five months before the surrender of the Third Reich.

News had been circulating for some time about ready-to-use forces trained and equipped by NATO allies and held in reserve to close gaps, if part of the front collapsed, or to launch counterattacks.

Apparently, this grouping of about 25,000 fighters, partly foreign, was used for the offensive on Kursk and to control the rear of this front, which is located in the Ukrainian region of Sumy; border civilians were evacuated from the surrounding areas, by order of Kiev. Which apparently fears a Russian offensive on the western side of the border, where Ukrainian military sources say Russian “saboteurs” are present.

The first ten days were characterized by a war of movement, in which the Ukrainians sought more to wreak havoc and move as far east as possible than to consolidate territorial gains: armored columns sought to reach population centers and expand the territory under their control up to 30 km from the border, bypassing the defenses that the Russians were building with units recalled from Ukraine, Kaliningrad, and various regions of the Federation, which by mid-August had already made it possible to recapture some population centers. Kiev troops appear to be able to control the town of Sudzha, where the pumping station for the pipeline, which still pumps about 40 million cubic meters of gas per day to Europe via Ukraine, is located.

The destruction, announced by Moscow and not denied by Kiev, of six launchers of Patriot and Buk surface-to-air missile systems, which provided an anti-aircraft umbrella for the attackers, apparently allowed the Russians to make extensive use of air force equipped with long-range guided bombs. Weapons that would account for much of the Ukrainian losses suffered on the home front, and ambushes against several convoys identified and destroyed numerous Western weapons used by the Ukrainians on Russian soil, including British Challenger 2 tanks, M777 howitzers, the American combat vehicles Bradley and Stryker, the German Marder, and the French VAB. However, London and Washington have not authorized Kiev to use long-range ATACMS and Storm Shadow missiles on Russian territory.

In addition to Russian military sources, the heavy losses suffered by the Ukrainians in Kursk were also confirmed by British reporters who saw a long convoy of ambulances at the border picking up bodies and wounded. At the time of writing, it seems that the Kursk attack is not sustainable over time on the part of Kiev, designed to avert the risk of an imminent military catastrophe in Donbass, and that it has political rather than military objectives. If Kiev, in addition to prestige for invading Russian territory, sought to force the Russians to halt their offensive in Donbass, the goal seems to have failed, and it is the Ukrainians who will find themselves under an increasingly short military “screen.”

Kiev claims that this offensive will secure the Sumy border region and force Moscow to negotiate with fewer demands. But it is more likely, on the contrary, to increase Russian pressure along the entire border and remove any possibility of negotiations, jeopardizing the draft talks that Donald Trump and Viktor Orban have prepared and that the Hungarian prime minister has presented to Kiev, Moscow, Beijing, and Ankara.

A welcome development for the current US administration, which has committed to breaking the agreement between the Russians and Ukrainians mediated by Turkey back in April 2022. The basic principle remains: the war must continue to wear Russia down. Moreover, it is unlikely that the attack on Kursk was carried out without the direct and intelligence support of the Anglo-Americans, who appear to have been directly involved in the operation with so-called “irregular” or “clandestine” forces. An aspect that poses great risks for NATO partners, who for the most part find themselves facing a fait accompli of the operation, and that is not without its dangers. Suffice it to recall that an invasion of national territory is one of the conditions under which the Russian nuclear doctrine provides for the possible use of nuclear weapons.

The Kursk attack could reinforce the Kremlin’s version that the enemy in this war is Western powers for whom Ukraine is merely an expendable tool: an element that could encourage many more volunteers to join the more than 600,000 Russians enlisted under contract to fight in Ukraine. Moreover, for some time, Kiev has been doing everything it can to strike Russia deeply and internationalize the conflict: by flying drones over Belarus and claiming support offered to African militias to strike Russian contractors in Sudan and Mali. Perhaps in the hope of directly involving NATO countries in the war.