By Big Serge, Substack, 8/20/24
On Tuesday, August 6, the Russo-Ukrainian War took an unexpected twist with the beginning of a brigade-level Ukrainian assault on Kursk Oblast, across the border from Ukrainian Sumy. The decision by Ukrainian command to willingly open up a new front, at a time when their defenses on critical axes of the Donbas are failing, is both aggressive and fraught with peril. The sensational spectacle of a Ukrainian offensive into prewar Russia in a region that is operationally remote from the critical theater of the war has whipped the peanut gallery into a frenzy, and most commentators and observers seem to have fled straightaway to their base narrative instincts. Russian “doomers” have been quick to denounce the affair as a catastrophic failure of preparedness by the Russian Ministry of Defense, accelerationists have trumpeted the immateriality of Russian red lines, while the more disillusioned pro-Ukrainian commenters have despaired of the operation as a wasteful sideshow which dooms the Donbas line to defeat.
People form opinions very rapidly in the current information ecosystem, and the prospect of excitement often leads them to throw caution to the wind despite the orgy of misinformation and deception that surrounds such events. It is worth noting, however, that only two weeks have passed since the beginning of an operation that apparently nobody was expecting, and we should therefore be cautious of certainty and carefully distinguish between what we think and what we know. With that in mind, let’s take a careful survey of the Ukrainian operation as it stands and attempt to parse out both the strategic concept of the assault and its possible trajectories.
The sudden and unexpected eruption of combat in Kursk oblast has, of course, raised comparisons to the 1943 Battle of Kursk, which is often incorrectly called the “biggest tank battle of all time.” For a variety of reasons, that famous battle is a poor comparison. Germany’s Operation Citadel was a constrained and unambitious operation against a fully alert defense, characterized by a lack of both strategic imagination and strategic surprise. The current Ukrainian endeavor may lay on the opposite end of the spectrum – highly imaginative, and perhaps dangerously so. Nevertheless, the return of German military equipment to the environs of Kursk must raise eyebrows. The current battlefield around the town of Sudzha is precisely the spot where, in 1943, the Soviet 38th and 40th armies coiled for a counteroffensive against the German 4th Army. Russia’s southwestern steppe tastes blood again, and the fertile earth opens wide to accept the dead.
Krepost: Strategic Intentions
Before we talk about the strategic concept behind Ukraine’s operation in Kursk, let us briefly ponder what to call it. Repeating the phrase “Ukraine’s Kursk Operation” will rapidly become tiresome and dry, and calling it “Kursk”, or “The Battle of Kursk” is not a good option – both because it raises some confusion as to whether we mean the city of Kursk or the larger oblast around it, and because there has already been a Battle of Kursk. Therefore, I am suggesting that for now we simply refer to the Ukrainian assault as Operation Krepost. Germany’s 1943 offensive towards Kursk was codenamed Operation Citadel, and Krepost (крепость) is a Slavic word for a fortress or citadel.
Ukraine has made repeated forays across the Russian border throughout this war – generally suicidal thunder runs into Belgorod Oblast which met with disaster. Krepost, however, stands apart from previous episodes in several ways, chief among them being the use of regular AFU brigades rather than the paramilitary fronts stood up by the GRU (that is, the Ukrainian Main Intelligence Directorate, not Steve Carell’s character in the Despicable Me franchise).
For previous expeditions towards Belgorod, the Ukrainians opted to use thinly veiled irregular formations like the “Freedom of Russia Legion” and the “Russian Volunteer Corps”. These are the sort of sheep dipped units that can be useful in certain contexts by allowing states to maintain a token façade of plausible deniability – a good corollary might be Russia’s own use of unmarked special forces in the 2014 annexation of Crimea. In a time of active war, however, these paramilitaries came across as exceptionally lame. Whatever the “Freedom of Russia Legion” called themselves, they were obviously forces stood up by the Ukrainian government, using Ukrainian weaponry, fighting Ukraine’s war. The paint job fooled nobody, and absurdities like the “Belgorod People’s Republic” did not exist beyond a few bad memes on twitter.
It is notable, however, that the Kursk incursion has been undertaken not by forces disguising themselves (however poorly) as independent Russian paramilitaries but by Ukrainian forces operating as themselves – that is, as regular Ukrainian army brigades. Committing core AFU assets to a ground incursion in Russia, especially during a time of general operational crisis in the Donbas, is something entirely different than flinging a disposable paramilitary battalion at Belgorod.
But why? The obvious thing that stands out about Kursk is how operationally remote it is from the critical theater of the war. The center of gravity in this conflict is the Donbas, and Ukraine’s line of defenses around the cities of Pokrovsk, Kostyantinivka, Kramatorsk, and Slovyansk, with crucial flanking axes in the land bridge and on the Oskil River line. The frontier of Kursk Oblast, where the Ukrainians are now attacking, is more than 130 kilometers away from the subsidiary battles around Kharkov, and more than 200 kilometers away from the main theater of the war. Given the scope of this war and the pace of advances, Kursk may as well be on the moon.
In short, the Ukrainian operation in Kursk bears no possibility of being supportive of the other, critical fronts of the war, and even in the most generous range of outcomes it has no potential to exert a direct operational influence on those fronts. Parsing through the strategic intention behind Krepost, therefore, in that it has no immediate operational bearing on extant fronts. A variety of opportunities have been proposed, which we will review and contemplate in turn.
1) The Atomic Hostage
Sixty kilometers from the Ukrainian border lies the small city of Kurchatov (named after Igor Kurchatov, the father of Soviet nuclear weaponry) and the Kursk Nuclear Powerplant. The proximity of such an obviously significant – and potentially dangerous – installation so close to the scene of the fighting led many to immediately presume that the nuclear plant is the objective of Krepost.
These theories are highly reductive and unsupported, and act as if the powerplant is the object in a game of tag – as if Ukraine can “win” by reaching the plant. It’s not immediately obvious that this is the case. There’s plenty of hand-wringing about Ukraine “capturing” the plant, but the question then remains: to do what with?
The implication would seem to be that Ukraine might use the plant as a hostage, threatening to sabotage it and initiate some sort of radiological disaster. This, however, would seem to be both impractical and unlikely. The Kursk plant is currently in a state of transition, with its four older RBMK reactors (similar to those used at Chernobyl) being phased out and replaced with new VVER reactors. The plant features modern biologic shields, a robust containment building, and other protective mechanisms. Furthermore, nuclear power plants do not explode in the sense that is often feared. Chernobyl, for example, experienced a steam explosion due to particular design flaws which do not exist in currently operable plants. The idea that Ukrainian soldiers could simply flip a bunch of switches and detonate the plant like a nuclear bomb are not realistic.
It is theoretically possible, one supposes, that the Ukrainians could try to bring in colossal amounts of explosives and send the entire plant sky high, spreading radioactive material into the atmosphere. While I am certainly no great admirer of the Kiev regime, I cannot help but doubt the willingness of the Ukrainian government to intentionally create a radiological disaster which would irradiate much of their own country along with swathes of central Europe, particularly because the Kursk region is part of the Dnieper watershed.
The powerplant story sounds scary but is ultimately too phantasmagorical to take seriously. Ukraine is not going to intentionally create a radiological disaster in close proximity to their own border, which would likely poison their own primary river basin and turn them into the most intensely hated international pariah ever seen. Even for a country at the end of its strategic rope, it’s hard to give credence to a harebrained scheme that uses critical maneuver assets of the regular army to capture an enemy nuclear plant and rig it to blow.
2) Diversionary Front
In another formulation, Krepost is construed as an attempt to draw Russian resources away from other, more critical sectors of front. The idea of a “diversion” as such is always appealing, to the point where it becomes something of a trope, but it’s worth considering what this might actually mean in the context of the relative force generation in this war.
We can begin with the more abstract problem here – Ukraine is operating at a serious disadvantage in total force generation, which means that any widening of the front will disproportionately burden the AFU. Extending the frontline with an entirely new – and strategically isolated – axis of combat would be a development that works against the outnumbered force. This is why, in 2022, we saw the Russians contract the frontline by hundreds of kilometers as a prelude to their mobilization. The idea of extending the front becomes a shell game for the Ukrainians – with fewer brigades than the Russians to cover more than 1000 kilometers of frontline, it becomes questionable as to just which army is being “diverted” in Kursk. For example, the spokesman for the 110th Mechanized Brigade (currently defending near Pokrovsk) told Politico that “things have become worse in our part of the front” since Ukraine launched Krepost, with less ammunition coming in as the Russians continue to attack.
The more concrete problem for Ukraine, however, is that the Russians formed an entirely new Northern Army Group covering Belgorod, Kursk, and Bryansk and is in the process of raising two additional army equivalents. To the extent that Krepost forces the deployment of Russian reserves, it will draw from forces organic to this northern grouping, and not the Russian formations currently attacking in the Donbas. Ukrainian sources are already taking a dour mood, noting that there has been no drawdown of Russia’s grouping in the Donbas. Thus far, the identified Russian units fighting in Kursk have essentially all been drawn from this northern grouping
More to the point, Krepost seems to have meaningfully denuded Ukrainian strength in the Donbas while affecting the Russians very little. A recent piece in the Economist featured interviews with several Ukrainian troops fighting in Kursk, all of whom said that their units had been “pulled, unrested, from under-pressure frontlines in the east with barely a day’s notice.” The article goes on to quote a source in the AFU’s general staff who notes that the Russian units scrambling into Kursk are coming from the northern army group, not the Donbas. A recent New York Times piece, which triumphantly announced the redeployment of Russian forces, admitted that none of Russia’s troop movements are affecting the Donbas – instead, it is deploying resting units from the Dnipro axis.
And this is Ukraine’s problem. Fighting an enemy with superior force generation, attempts to divert or redirect the fighting ultimately threaten to become a shell game. Russia has approximately 50 division equivalents on the line against perhaps 33 for Ukraine – an advantage that will stubbornly persist no matter how they are arranged on the line. Adding 100 extra kilometers of front in Kursk is fundamentally contradictory to the AFU’s fundamental interests at this juncture, which hinge on economizing forces and avoiding overextension.
3) Bargaining Chip
Another strand of thought suggests that Krepost may be an effort to strengthen Ukraine’s position for negotiations with Russia. An anonymous Zelensky advisor allegedly told the Washington Post that the point of the operation was to seize Russian territory to hold as a bargaining chip which could be swapped in negotiations. This view was then corroborated by senior advisor Mykhailo Podolyak.
If we take these claims at face value, we perhaps have arrived at the strategic intention of Krepost. If Ukraine indeed intends to occupy a swathe of Kursk Oblast and use it to bargain for the return of prewar Ukrainian territory in the Donbas, then we must ask the obvious question: have they lost their minds?
Such a plan would instantly founder on two insurmountable problems. The first of these would be an obvious misread of the relative value of the chips on the table. The Donbas – the heart of Russia’s war aims – is a highly urbanized region of nearly seven million inhabitants, which – along with Russian annexed Zaporozhia and Kherson – forms a critical strategic link to Crimea and grants Russia control over the Sea of Azov and much of the Black Sea littoral. The idea that the Kremlin would consider walking away from its aims here simply to bloodlessly recover a few small towns in southwestern Kursk is, in a word, lunacy. It would, in the luminary words of President Trump, be “the worst trade deal in the history of trade deals.”
If Ukraine thought that seizing Russian territory would make Moscow more amenible to peace talks, they badly miscalculated. The Kremlin responded by declaring an Anti-Terror Operation in Kursk, Byransk, and Belgorod Oblasts, and Putin – far from appearing humiliated or cowed – projected anger and defiance, while Foreign Ministry officials have suggested that the Kursk operation now precludes negotiations.
The other problem with trying to hold Kursk as a bargaining chip is, well, that you have to hold it. As we will discuss shortly, this will be very difficult for the AFU. They managed to achieve strategic surprise and make a modest penetration into Kursk, but there are a variety of kinetic factors that make them unlikely to hold it. For something to be useful as a bargaining chip, it must be in your possession – this would therefore compel Ukraine to commit forces to the Kursk front indefinitely, and hold it to the bitter end.
4) Pure Spectacle
Finally, we come to the more nebulous option – that Krepost was conceived purely to scandalize and embarrass the Kremlin. This is certainly the sensationalized solution that much of the commentariat has converged on, with plenty of vicious delight in the reversal of fortunes and the spectacular reverse uno of Ukraine invading Russia.
This all plays well with foreign audiences, of course, but it ultimately does not matter much. There’s no evidence that the Kremlin’s grip on the conflict or the commitment of Russian society to support the war are wavering. This war has seen a long sequence of nominal Russian “embarrassment”, from the 2022 withdrawals from Kharkov and Kherson, to the Ukrainian air strikes on Sevastopol, to drone and terror attacks deep inside Russia, all the way to the bizarre mutiny of the Wagner PMC. None of these things have detracted from the central objectives of the Kremlin’s war, which remain the capture of the Donbas and the steady exhaustion of Ukraine’s military resources. Did the AFU throw a grouping of its dwindling strategic reserves into Kursk Oblast purely to scandalize and embarrass Putin? Possibly. Would it matter? Highly unlikely.
It’s very common, particularly on social media, to see a sort of reveling in the great reversal of Ukraine liberating Russia, and battlefield updates frequently make reference to the AFU “liberating” Kursk oblast. This is, of course, very childish and meaningless. Once one extracts oneself from the spectacle, the entire enterprise seems obviously disconnected from the larger logic of Ukraine’s war. It’s not at all clear how occupying a narrow slice of the Russian frontier correlates to Ukraine’s self-professed war aims of regaining its 1991 borders, or how widening the front is supposed to promote a negotiated end to the settlement, or – for that matter – how the little town of Sudzha could be a fair trade for the Donbas transit hub of Pokrovsk.
Ultimately, we have to acknowledge that Krepost is a very odd military development – an overmatched force, already heaving from the strain of a grinding, 700 kilometer front, voluntarily opened a new, independent axis of combat which has no possibility of operationally synergizing with the war’s critical theaters. There is some satisfaction to be derived from bringing the war into Russia and scandalizing the Kremlin. Perhaps Kiev hopes that simply unsettling the situation will cajole the Russian military into making a mistake or redeploying out of position, but so far the Kursk axis has not denuded Russian strength in other theaters. Perhaps they really do think that they can seize enough ground to bargain with, but to do that they will need to hold it. Or perhaps they are simply losing the war, and desperation breeds strange ideas.
History will probably conclude that Krepost was an inventive, but ultimately far-fetched gambit. The crude calculus on the ground shows that the existing trajectory of the war simply doesn’t work for Ukraine. Russian progress across the contact line in the east has been steady and relentless throughout the spring and summer, and the devastating Ukrainian failure in 2023’s counteroffensive showed that banging away against alert and entrenched Russian defenses is not a good answer. Faced with the prospect between slow strangulation in the east, Ukraine has attempted to unlock the front and introduce a more kinetic and open pace.
On the Ground
The biggest problem with the more fanciful and explosive theories of Operation Krepost are fairly simple: the results on the ground are not very good. The attack has been both limited in scale and constrained in its advance, but the shock and surprise of the operation has allowed the narrative to spin out of control, both on the part of exuberant Ukrainian supporters and the usual doomposters in the Kremlin orbit, who have been bemoaning and expecting imminent Russian defeat for years at this point….
Krepost ultimately reflects a growing Ukrainian frustration with the trajectory of the war in the east, where the AFU has grown weary of the industrial slugfest with its bigger and more powerful neighbor. By flinging a secretly assembled mechanized package at a lightly defended and previously ancillary sector of front, they briefly managed to reopen mobile operations, but the window of mobility was far too small and the gains far too meager. It has now become clear that the decision to divert forces to Kursk has undermined the already precarious defense of the Donbas. Ukraine hold Sudzha and may very well clear the south bank of the Seim, but if it comes at the expense of Pokrovsk and Toretsk, that is a trade that the Russian Army will be happy to make.
The AFU is expending carefully husbanded and scarce resources in the pursuit of operationally inconsequential objectives. The exhilaration of taking the fight to Russia and being on the attack again can certainly work wonders for morale and create a spectacle for western backers, but the effect is short lived – like a broke man gambling away his last dollar, all for the momentary thrill of chance.