Ukraine's Kursk Attack Surprised the Russians - And Its Own Troops

Only a few senior officers were involved in the planning. Some units were not informed of where they were going until days before. The US and other western allies were kept in the dark. 

The stunning success of the offensive has embarrassed Putin, whose poll ratings have dropped precipitously. It has also exposed the severity of Russian shortages in personnel and equipment. And the offensive continues to gain ground, even as Russia has begun, finally, to send reinforcements. JL

James Marson reports in the Wall Street Journal:

The Kursk operation stunned Russia when it launched, overrunning weak border defenses and quickly seizing 100 towns in the Kursk region. The invasion embarrassed Putin, raised Ukrainians’ morale, and showed the U.S. and other backers that Ukraine still has plenty of fight in it. Now in its fourth week, the incursion is continuing to make gains even as Russia has sent reinforcements. The Kursk operation has won plaudits for its planning, secrecy and speed. Ukrainian General Syrskiy drew conclusions from Ukraine’s failed counteroffensive in 2023. Only a small number of senior officers took part in the meetings to plan for the incursion which tapped battle-hardened units, such as the 80th and 82nd Air Assault Brigades, to lead it. Ukraine didn’t inform the U.S. of plans.

Ukraine’s top military commander gathered senior officers for a secret meeting in late July where he disclosed an audacious plan to revive the country’s flagging war effort.

Ukraine’s army, Gen. Oleksandr Syrskiy told them, would turn the tables on Moscow by launching the first large-scale invasion of Russia since World War II.

One attendee, the chief of staff of the 61st Mechanized Brigade, said his initial reaction was shock.

“Where are we going?” Lt. Col. Artem Kholodkevych recalled thinking.

The brazen operation also stunned Russia when it launched on Aug. 6, overrunning weak border defenses and quickly seizing around 100 towns and villages in Russia’s Kursk region. The invasion embarrassed Russian President Vladimir Putin, raised Ukrainians’ morale after a year of grinding defensive war, and showed the U.S. and other backers that Ukraine still has plenty of fight in it.

“We exploded the myth that Russia is an invincible country,” Kholodkevych said in an interview. “We did something that no one has done for 80 years.” The operation has brought a brighter spotlight on its architect, Syrskiy. The 59-year-old career military officer faced a challenging proposition when he took over in February. He was replacing a popular predecessor, Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhniy, and since then has sought largely to manage a war of attrition against a much larger foe.

Ukrainian incursion into Russia

Ukrainian advances near Kursk region

Russian forces

Kyiv

KURSK

REGION

Kursk

Rylsk

RUSSIA

Sudzha

Sumy

UKRAINE

20 miles

20 km

Note: As of Aug. 28
Source: Institute for the Study of War and AEI’s Critical Threats Project
Andrew Barnett/WSJ

The incursion has, for now, upended the narrative of the war, putting Ukraine back on the offensive. But the success of the operation will ultimately be determined by whether it leads to lasting gains, or greater losses, on the battlefield—or yields political dividends that bring more military support from the U.S. and its allies or strengthen Ukraine’s position in any future peace negotiations.

Now in its fourth week, the incursion is continuing to make gains even as Russia has sent reinforcements. At least 2,000 Russian troops are hemmed in against a river, where repeated attempts to relieve them using pontoon bridges have failed, according to Ukrainian soldiers.

Some military strategists and soldiers have questioned the Kursk operation, saying Syrskiy is committing precious reserves of manpower and equipment to a new front while Russia is taking advantage of Ukraine’s threadbare defensive lines on the eastern front to press forward. Russia has withdrawn several thousand troops from Ukraine in response to the incursion, but has intensified assaults on its main target, Pokrovsk, a critical logistics hub for Ukrainian operations in the east. Others have praised the move, saying that Ukraine needed to play a joker to change the momentum of a war.

Ukraine couldn’t afford simply to keep trying to buy time by throwing more men into defensive lines, said retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, a former commander of the U.S. Army in Europe. “Nobody has enough resources to do everything,” he said. “You are constantly having to make decisions about priorities, where to accept risk.” The operation is also a bold gambit for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who was trapped between a slow but relentless advance by Russia, which wants to take control of Ukraine, and the West’s unwillingness to provide sufficient weaponry to reverse Russian gains.

“He saw that only one actor can change the status quo,” said Mick Ryan, a military strategist and retired major general in the Australian Army. “It’s risky but audacious.”

Zelensky said Tuesday he is planning to travel to the U.S. in September to present a peace plan that has been spurred, in part, by the positive dynamic of the invasion. Syrskiy, a fitness buff with a passion for military history, had an ambiguous reputation among Ukrainian soldiers. His stern, clipped style contrasts with his predecessor, who would pose for selfies and flash V signs for victory.

Syrskiy led the defense of Kyiv that repelled Russia’s assault in early 2022, and a successful counteroffensive in the northeastern Kharkiv region that autumn. But some blamed him for heavy losses in the defense of the eastern city of Bakhmut, which Russia captured in May 2023 after months of brutal fighting.

The Kursk operation has won the general plaudits for its planning, secrecy and speed. Analysts and Ukrainian officers said Syrskiy had evidently drawn conclusions from Ukraine’s failed counteroffensive during the summer of 2023, when Ukraine consulted with the U.S. and other Western partners, deployed newly formed brigades and telegraphed its plans with videos and public comments.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Gen. Oleksandr Syrskiy during a trip to the Kharkiv region in November. Photo: Efrem Lukatsky/Associated Press

Only a small number of senior officers took part in the meetings, led by Syrskiy, to thrash out detailed plans for the incursion. Syrskiy tapped battle-hardened units, such as the 80th and 82nd Air Assault Brigades, to lead the incursion and didn’t inform the U.S. of plans.

While last year’s counteroffensive assaulted Russia’s strongest fortifications in the south, this time Syrskiy picked a target that Moscow had assumed was untouchable and left weakly defended primarily by conscripts.

“The strong point of Syrskiy is that he is a general who can act unusually, suddenly, unexpectedly for the enemy,” said Serhiy Cherevatiy, Syrskiy’s former communications adviser. “He knows we don’t have parity and can’t go head-to-head, so he uses cunning and any advantage we have. Before Syrskiy’s July meeting with senior officers from units selected for the operation, troops from the 61st Brigade had spent months training in the east for what officers assumed would be another defensive engagement. Even after the general’s disclosure that they would be going into Russia, Kholodkevych, the brigade’s chief of staff, thought it might simply be a bluff, meant to deceive the Russians.

The transfer of the 61st Brigade from the east was accompanied by a disinformation campaign indicating they were headed for Vovchansk, a northern city under assault since May, when Russia launched its own cross-border incursion. Instead, the brigade was in the second wave of Ukrainian troops into Kursk on Aug. 7. As assault troops on fast-moving armored vehicles drove deeper into Russia avoiding head-on assaults in towns and villages, the 61st mopped up pockets of soldiers cut off by the quick advance.

The rapid operation bears similarities to Syrskiy’s Kharkiv offensive, which took advantage of Russian weak points to break through their lines, cut off troops and take back swaths of territory.

 

Now, Ukraine is taking advantage of Russian unpreparedness to strike deeper into the rear, creating what Zelensky has called a buffer zone to impede Russian military operations against Ukraine. Kyiv’s forces are still taking more prisoners to add to a pool that Ukraine hopes to trade for its own people detained in Russia.

Ukraine is using new tactics and equipment to gain an upper hand where Russian defenses are weaker, including using small explosive drones to strike down helicopters and Russian surveillance drones. The commander of a drone unit, call sign Aristarkh, said that was allowing Ukrainian artillery to move more freely and hit more targets as the threat of discovery is lower. Aristarkh’s teams operate strike drones with a range of 30 miles that can drop aerial bombs on high-value targets such as artillery guns.

Russia has a total of 30,000 troops in the area to counter the offensive, Syrskiy said Tuesday, some of them transferred from Ukraine.

Still, Syrskiy said Russia wasn’t redeploying troops from the Pokrovsk front to Kursk, as Ukraine had hoped it would, and is instead not strengthening its forces there. That has provoked complaints from soldiers in the east that their defensive efforts have been starved in favor of the Kursk offensive.

Hodges, the retired U.S. Army Europe commander, said that is a risk that Syrskiy and his advisers will have foreseen and decided it was worth taking.

“This is not about a popularity contest,” he said. “It’s about achieving strategic effect, which means you have to accept risk in other areas.”