Was Ukraine’s risky attack on Russia’s Kursk Oblast worth it?

• Ukraine launched a risky attack on Russia last year, seizing much of Kursk’s territory.
• Ukraine was able to attack and take the initiative, but at home there were no visible results of this match.
• Warfare experts said the move was likely profitable, but whether that was true remains to be seen.

Ukraine ambitious progress in Russia’s Kursk region There was a huge risk last summer.

Military historians will likely debate for a long time whether the risk was ultimately worth taking. In the case of Ukraine, there are some signs that it could double new offensive.

There were costs but the Kursk attack gave the Ukrainians a chance to break out of their slow, brutal, and fierce defensive situation at home and go on the attack, as well as divert Russian resources. There is still a possibility that this will help Kiev in potential peace talks.

“It’s hard to say until everything is clear, but I still think it was a good move,” Mark Cancian, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said of Ukraine’s actions in Kursk in recent months.

The Ukrainian Kursk operation was an opportunity to change the status quo

The Ukrainian Kursk operation came as a surprise to war observers, International partners of Ukraine, Russian soldiers defending the country’s borders, and even many of them Kiev’s own soldiers.

Ukraine has stated that it is trying to create a buffer zone, strain Russian combat resourcesand secure land and prisoners for negotiations with Moscow.

Ukraine probably also wanted to boost the morale of its tired forces, as well as signal strength to Western countries that may have grown increasingly tired of providing support.

The promotion also gave him a chance taking the initiative and moving the fight to Russian soil. It has long been believed that taking the initiative is the key to winning wars.

Without it, like in chess, “you’re constantly on the defensive and your opponent is pushing you into a corner,” said George Barros, a war expert at the Institute for the Study of War.

The risk is that sooner or later you will be left with “a series of bad decisions that you would rather not have made,” he said. Letting your opponent take the initiative in war is “how you end up losing.”

Ukraine has also proven that it has more cards to play in this war.

Colonel Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, former commander of the British Joint Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Forces, highlighted Ukraine’s use of drones and Ukraine’s effective use of armored maneuvers.

But these maneuvers were costly.

Reported tank losses suggest that the fighting at Kursk “has taken up quite a large proportion” of Ukrainian armor from Western partner nations, said Matthew Savill, a former intelligence analyst at the British Ministry of Defense and now a military strategy expert at the Royal United Services Institute.

This limits Ukraine’s flexibility and ability to add forces elsewhere.

However, there is no guarantee that Ukraine would be able to effectively use tanks on its own territory, where intense fighting and dense drone coverage have made limited their use. Michał Bohnert, a warfare expert at the RAND Corporation said that taking the tanks to Kursk may have been the most optimal way to use them.

The Ukrainian army tried to ease the pressure on the front

President of Russia Vladimir Putin the initial response was slowand did not turn to the military for a solution, instead relying on a number of other security groups. As Russia finally intensified its efforts to dislodge the attacking Ukrainian troops, thousands of North Korean soldiers he came to fight for Russia.

Russia’s delayed and erratic response meant that Ukraine could capture more territory and prepare better defenses, but it also meant that hopes of drawing significant numbers of Russian troops away from the Ukrainian front line were not fully realized.

Russia she didn’t have to drastically tone down her efforts in Ukraine in response to Kursk, and his army advances, advancing throughout the fall.

Ukraine had to withdraw troops from its front lines at Kursk, potentially complicating its own defense. It is unclear whether it was better for Ukraine to move its forces to Kursk or defend the line at home.

But there were some good outcomes for Ukraine on its own soil.

The Ukrainian moves “fundamentally disrupted Russian battle plans,” Barros said, “as the forces and plans assuming their availability were then absorbed and hijacked by the newly imposed requirement to defend Kursk and repel the Ukrainians from Kursk.”

The head of the Ukrainian armed forces said in December that he had “no choice” but to attack Kursk, arguing that he needed to reduce pressure on the fronts in Ukraine and stop Russia from opening a new front in Ukraine’s Sumy region.

He said this reduced the intensity of Russian attacks on all of Ukraine except Pokrovsk and Kurakhov, areas where the Russians are advancing.

Ukraine had an uphill battle to maintain its position in Russia

Much less information comes from Kursk than from the fighting in Ukraine, but Russia loses have increased since AugustBritish intelligence claims, citing the Ukrainian military. Ukraine claims that Russia lost over 38,000 soldiers and over 1,000 pieces of equipment in Kursk.

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Bohnert said Kursk was “very expensive from the Russian point of view.” He said the losses Russia seems to accept in this country are surprising.

However, Russia is increasingly demonstrating that it is willing to tolerate high losses by clashing with Ukraine with its larger army in a war of attrition.

At the height of its invasion of Russia, Ukraine occupied approximately 500 square miles of territory in Kursk. However, Russia appears to have recovered about half of that sum, and it is unclear what Ukraine’s latest actions in the country may bring.

War experts told BI that the Ukrainians he could voluntarily give up at least some of itless chained to owning every inch of territory than in one’s own country. De Bretton-Gordon said Ukraine still holds significant territory, which could prove helpful to the country if ending the war depends on negotiations – which President-elect Donald Trump insisted.

“Whoever holds Kursk is likely to be a major factor in the ceasefire negotiations in the new year,” de Bretton-Gordon said, adding that he largely viewed Ukraine’s decision to advance on Russia’s Kursk as a “positive.”

Kursk not only served as a bargaining chip, but also helped dispel the notion that the war was in a hopeless stalemate. It also showed that surprises and big profits are possible for Ukraine.

“If enough Western officials and politicians believe that the situation is hopeless and cannot be changed, then over time their appetite to continue supporting Ukraine will decline. This is the whole Russian strategy,” Barros said.

Although some Western countries eventually gave Kiev new authorizations to use their weapons to strike Russia in support of Ukrainian operations, Kursk did not result in a massive increase in aid from Ukraine’s partners, and it is unclear whether it had any significant impact on their long-term thinking.

The attack on Russia was a shocking moment and boosted morale, but it did not produce the results that Kiev had hoped for but could not.

Ukraine risk assessment in Kursk

So was the Ukrainian Kursk operation worth it? This question is still under debate.

Based on Ukraine’s knowledge at the time of the attack and what has happened since then, Cancian said he would say, “Yes, I did the right thing.”

Barros said that without Kursk, “the Russians would gravitate toward this attritional style of war where they could continue to launch attacks.” And Ukraine would gravitate towards the way Russia wanted to fight.

Savill said he was “careful about criticizing it from a thousand miles away when they are in an existential struggle and I am not.”

“It was a brave choice,” he said. “It actually put the Russians on the back foot temporarily. It showed what well-equipped Ukrainian forces can do if they identify a weak spot.” But he also said that the decision to keep so much of Kursk after its first major promotion “may turn out to be a mistake.”

Barros said the question of whether Kursk is worth it is a “complex issue” because “we’re looking at a living patient.” Ultimately, however, he said, “it was good that the Ukrainians tried to question this initiative and impose problems on the Russians.”