Ukrainian military vehicles pass a sign reading Ukraine, left, and Russia near the destroyed Russian border post on the Russian side of the Sudzha border crossing with Ukraine, on Aug. 12.DAVID GUTTENFELDER/The New York Times News Service
Michael Bociurkiw is a global affairs analyst and senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.
More than one week into Ukraine’s audacious incursion into Russia – its first invasion of its neighbour since the 1940s – those of us who have covered the war from the start are still shaking our heads in disbelief.
And what a difference a week makes. Earlier this month, there were fears that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky could be pressed into capitulating to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s unreasonable conditions for peace talks (ie., telling Ukraine it must withdraw from large parts of its own territory). Ukrainian troops were performing poorly at the frontline, the second-biggest city of Kharkiv was pummelled by rockets and businesses across Ukraine struggled with punishing power outages caused by strikes on critical infrastructure.
Now the tables are turning. If Mr. Putin doesn’t act fast, he may end up not at the peace talks table, but on the menu.
Ukraine’s incursions have revealed a far weaker Russian defence and border security apparatus than previously thought, not to mention shattering the Kremlin’s facade of invincibility. As of Monday, Ukrainian forces controlled dozens of settlements stretching over 1,000 square kilometres in Russia’s Kursk region. At least 10,000 Ukrainian soldiers are involved, belonging to four highly experienced brigades deftly using the element of surprise and a novel mix of conventional and high-tech warfare. By the end of this week, as many as a quarter-million Russians will have been evacuated.
Fearing that its allies in Western capitals may not understand its motivations, Kyiv issued some clarification on Monday, claiming legitimate grounds to strike a region being used to launch attacks against civilian infrastructure. “Since the beginning of this summer, Russia has launched over 2,000 strikes on Ukraine from the Kursk region, including multiple launch rocket systems, artillery, grenade launchers, drones, 255 guided aerial bombs, and over a hundred missiles,” a Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesperson said. Military planners in Kyiv were also hoping to draw Russian soldiers and assets away from the long frontline in order to reclaim some of its own territory.
And from a public relations point of view, Ukraine’s incursion was a stroke of brilliance. First, it showed western allies, including Canada, that given the chance, it can employ military aid effectively against Russia. Second, it exposed Mr. Putin as an emperor with no clothes. One would have thought that such an invasion would be the red line that might prompt Mr. Putin to make good on his threat to use tactical nuclear weapons; so far, that, nor his pledge to “kick the enemy out,” have materialized. And thirdly, it has not only boosted morale among the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the general public – it has also achieved Mr. Zelensky’s goal of bringing the war to the doorstep of Russians. As my friend Danylo Bilak, a member of Ukraine’s Territorial Defense Forces, has said, ordinary Russians need to feel the costs of the war in order for pressure to build to bring an end to it.
What Ukraine will do next is difficult to determine. Continuing further into Russian territory runs the risk of stretching its troops too thinly, complicating resupply lines for things such as fuel, food and vehicle maintenance. At this point, it seems the most rational strategy is to dig in, prepare for Russian retaliation, and try for another round at the negotiating table using new prisoners of war and seized Russian territory as bargaining chips.
While Western officials are probably quietly applauding Ukraine’s success in Russia, it is safe to assume there are lingering worries of what could happen should Mr. Putin be backed further into a corner. The Russians might seek to stage an accident at the seized Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe and a significant bargaining chip itself, which would cause panic globally. Just last week the Russians were accused of literally playing with fire at the plant. Ukrainian officials have also warned that Russian special forces could stage war crimes in Kursk to discredit Ukraine and its allies.
Russian forces appear far from stabilizing the situation and Ukraine has said it has no interest in keeping Russian land. So what to do? Kyiv needs the same stealth it has employed militarily to leverage the situation to, as Mr. Putin himself says, “improve its negotiating position in the future.”
Western allies, meanwhile, need to once and for all stop falling for Mr. Putin’s hollow sabre-rattling, come to the realization that this is a moment that may never repeat itself and provide Ukraine with everything it needs to press its enemy to come to the negotiating table and agree to a large-scale land swap.