Ukraine Is Poking the Russian Bear

David French

Here’s one way to think through the importance of the news stories that flood our lives: Which ones will historians still be talking about in 50 years? Are there any that they’ll be talking about in 100? The answer is yes. Without question, historians will be discussing the Russia-Ukraine war even 100 years from now. It’s a bloody slugfest between two advanced nations in Europe that has immense strategic implications for the United States (and the world). It’s a struggle that’s changing the nature of warfare — with its mass use of drones and other new technologies — and it could alter the global balance of power, especially if Western will fails and Russia overwhelms Ukraine.

And right now, after months of bleak and dispiriting news from the front, Ukraine has taken the initiative. A substantial Ukrainian force achieved surprise and penetrated the Russian border near Kursk, a region that was the site of one of the most significant battles of World War II. That clash cost an estimated million combined casualties and permanently handed the strategic initiative to the Soviet Red Army.

This battle of Kursk is much, much smaller. Thousands of Ukrainian troops have advanced miles deep into Russian territory. The headlines are thrilling, and social media is filled with footage of Ukraine’s assault, so I wanted to take a closer look.

How significant is the Ukrainian attack, really? Is it a potentially decisive blow that could change the course of the war in Ukraine’s favor, or is it a gamble that will ultimately cost Ukraine dearly? What is the real situation on the ground? To try to answer these and other questions, I talked to a number of military analysts, and their conclusions (with some slight variations) were remarkably similar.

Here are my key takeaways from those conversations.

Don’t call Ukraine’s attack an “invasion.” Russia’s attacks into Ukraine in 2014 and 2022 were true invasions, decisions to seize, hold and even annex Ukrainian territory. Ukraine has no permanent designs on sovereign Russian territory.

I spoke again to Frederick and Kimberly Kagan. Frederick is the director of the American Enterprise Institute’s Critical Threats Project, and Kimberly is the founder and president of the Institute for the Study of War, which creates real-time reports on the progress of the fighting in Ukraine.

Fred told me that the purpose of the Ukrainian attack is almost certainly “to achieve effects on the battlefield in Ukraine after the Russian invasion.” In other words, it’s an offensive move for a defensive purpose. Under this logic, Ukraine isn’t attacking Russia to seize Russian land; it’s attacking to relieve pressure on its beleaguered forces in the Donbas region. If it can create enough of a crisis in Kursk, with a strong-enough force, Russian leaders will have little choice but to move combat troops from the battlefront in Ukraine to the new battlefield in Kursk to try to dislodge the Ukrainian soldiers who are there. There are, in fact, preliminary reports that Russia is already transferring forces from the main zone of conflict in the south to help block the Ukrainian advance in Kursk.

Russia’s goal would be to repel the Ukrainian attack using reservists or internal security forces and not significant numbers of troops who are committed to the offensive in the Donbas. If Russia has to significantly reduce its combat power in the Donbas to block the Ukrainian advance in Kursk, then that’s a clear win for Ukraine.

Ukraine is taking a serious risk. I also talked to Michael Kofman, a senior fellow in the Russia and Eurasia program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Kofman is one of the world’s foremost experts on the Russian military, and I’ve found his reports from the Ukraine war to be invaluable. Time and again, his commentary has been predictive of the future course of the war.

He cautioned that it’s too early to tell how the offensive might unfold. “How things begin is important,” he said, “but not as important as how they end.” By removing troops from buckling front lines in the Donbas and Kharkhiv and sending them into combat in Kursk, Ukraine is gambling, and it may find itself in a difficult position: defending in the Donbas with depleted formations as it also defends its new lines in and around Kursk.

Military history is replete with examples of hopeful advances followed by devastating defeats and humiliating retreats. Ukraine’s effort in Kursk is modest enough that it’s not rolling the dice with the entire war effort, but it could end its attack in a worse position than it held when it began.

At the same time, Ukraine has created some real opportunities. Russia held the theaterwide initiative and now it doesn’t. Not only is Russia reacting to Ukraine’s actions, but it also demonstrated Russian vulnerability and highlighted enduring Russian weaknesses. Once again, Russia suffered a serious intelligence failure. While it could see Ukrainian forces massing, it could not discern Ukrainian intent and obviously did not anticipate that Ukrainians would cross the border in force.

Kimberly Kagan observed that Ukraine’s ability to achieve surprise showed the limits of the idea that drones and other surveillance capabilities have created a battlefield so “transparent” that surprise is no longer possible.

Photographs of military forces still require interpretation, and drone cameras can’t peer into human minds. They can see a force concentration without truly understanding the intent. Are they planning an attack? Or is it a mere feint, designed to draw forces away to defend against an attack that will never come? And even the best evidence of massing forces sometimes can’t penetrate a simple refusal to believe that the Ukrainians would be so aggressive.

The attack also highlighted once again that, in Kofman’s words, “the Russian military does not do well in a dynamic situation.” The initial response to the Ukrainian incursion was “shambolic,” he said. Ukraine has exploited a Russian vulnerability, and exposing Russian vulnerability changes public perception of the war, in Ukraine, in allied nations and perhaps even in Russia itself.

Ukraine has disrupted Vladimir Putin’s propaganda. As Frederick Kagan argues, Putin has tried to present the image of a “reconstituted Red Army with the limitless human resources and the ability to overwhelm Ukraine and the will to outlast the West, and that the outcome of the war is not in doubt.” Yet Ukraine’s attack has “shattered” that image.

Kimberly Kagan added that “the Ukrainian operation and its consequences should show all of us that the war in Ukraine is not over.” The Ukrainians have caused us to “open up our imagination” and “change the narrative that the war is simply stalemated along the front lines.”

Kofman noted the effect of the attack on Ukraine’s home front. Ukraine’s attack is “very significant in boosting Ukrainian morale,” he said, and at least for the moment, it’s “changing the negative trajectory of the war.”

While the Ukrainian attack has advanced only a few miles across the Russian border, it is causing mass evacuations in the conflict zone and — to an extent — sends a message to Russians: The war is coming home. Don’t think of Ukraine’s attack as creating a bargaining chip for peace negotiations, at least not yet. The purpose of the attack may not only be to relieve the pressure on the Donbas. There is speculation that it could set the stage for negotiations — perhaps to offer a land-for-peace swap — but it is way too premature to think this attack will do anything to bring the war to a close.

To compel Russia to negotiate for peace on more favorable terms, Ukraine does need to put Russia under greater military pressure, but it’s far from clear that this attack will create any lasting Ukrainian leverage. The operation is still in its early stages, and it’s too soon to tell even if it will significantly interfere with Russia’s offensive in the Donbas. In fact, there is some evidence that Russia has accelerated its attacks there. Russia has momentum, and it’s obvious that it wants to continue to press its advantage as long as it can.

There are just too many unknowns. Does Ukraine want to hold what it’s taken for a prolonged period of time? Can it? For how long? Does Ukraine have any other cards to play? This attack, after all, seems to have taken both Ukraine’s enemies and its allies by surprise, and no one should claim to have authoritative insight into Ukraine’s plans.

In the short term, however, look for fighting to intensify. Putin has been publicly humiliated (again), and if past performance is any predictor of future results, watch for him to attempt to respond with extreme violence. That’s what he’s done in Ukraine and in prior Russian conflicts — especially the Chechen wars, where Putin’s forces turned the Chechen capital, Grozny, into what the United Nations called the “most destroyed city on earth.”

The fog of war is very thick. All the people I talked to emphasized the same thing — every conclusion is tentative. It’s hard to gain a definitive view of the battlefield. The Ukrainian attack may not change the war in any material way. Don’t overhype its potential.

In fact, nothing about the attack changes the tough underlying realities of the war. Winter is coming, again, and Ukraine’s energy infrastructure is under immense strain. And while Ukraine has shown that it can surprise Russia and penetrate lightly defended sections of the border, it has not shown — at least since the failed counteroffensive last summer — that it can reliably penetrate prepared Russian defensive lines.

At the same time, Russia hasn’t demonstrated any real ability to engineer a decisive breakthrough of Ukrainian lines, either. Yes, it has advanced during its current offensive, but at a terrible cost. Last month the British Defense Ministry estimated, for example, that Russia suffered more than 70,000 total casualties in May and June alone.

But there is one thing that we do know. The Ukrainian attack (at least for now) is a good news story for a valiant nation in desperate need of a win. It is hard to overstate the relentless pressure of the Russian offensive, and even the most courageous people need hope to keep fighting against overwhelming odds.

Allied support gives Ukraine the weapons it needs to repel Russia and lets the Ukrainians know they are not alone. I’ve seen firsthand how our military aid gives Ukraine a fighting chance even against Russia’s most advanced conventional weapons. To sustain hope and courage in soldiers and civilians alike, however, there is no substitute for battlefield success.