Around 8 a.m. on the morning of August 6, some of Ukraine’s best soldiers launched a surprise invasion of Russia, easily seizing control of villages and large swathes of the Kursk region, on Ukraine’s northeastern border. For the first time since World War II, foreign troops had stepped onto Russian territory. Kyiv’s forces swept through the countryside with little resistance, and after a week, they’d taken an area roughly the size of Hong Kong.
The attack shocked military and political leaders in Washington and NATO capitals. Ukraine hadn’t shared its plans with any of its backers. While Ukrainian troops and civilians celebrated, Russians went online to criticize the Kremlin and the military.
Meanwhile, on the front lines in Ukraine’s Donbas region, Moscow’s armed forces have been gaining ground steadily. Over the past month, they’ve advanced within a few kilometers of the key transportation hub of Pokrovsk. And on the battlegrounds, Kyiv remains short on manpower, often outnumbered and outgunned.
A lot seems to have changed, very quickly. What does it mean for the war?
Robert Hamilton is the head of research with the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Eurasia Program and a retired U.S. Army colonel. Hamilton says Ukraine’s push into Russia was a high-stakes gamble—a move that meant pulling top troops from the existing front lines just as the Kremlin’s forces were gaining momentum there. Moscow pressed the offensive around Pokrovsk instead of shoring up defenses at Kursk, and that’s left the Ukrainians with a prime bargaining chip in any future negotiations to end the war—if they can hold their ground. What’s more, Hamilton says, they’ve transformed storylines about the conflict—and not just in Ukraine and the West. President Vladimir Putin has long sold the war to the Russian public as an inevitable win and minimal hassle. Now, that story has started to crumble—while Ukraine’s allies have started to see its chances in a new light …
Michael Bluhm: What would you say we know, and maybe still don’t know, about Ukraine’s goals for invading Kursk?
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