Ukraine may have tried to launch an incursion into another area of Russia this week in order to show its allies it can regain the initiative on the battlefield, according to military experts.
According to Russian military bloggers and a Russian official, Ukrainian forces tried to advance into the Belgorod region this week.
Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of Belgorod, said in a Telegram post on Tuesday that Ukraine was trying to break through the border there.
He also claimed that Russian forces had limited access to the village of Vyazovoye in Belgorod on Tuesday due to an unspecified “difficult operational situation” in the area, per Russian state news agency TASS.
Multiple Russian military bloggers said Russian forces had also repelled Ukrainian attacks near the villages of Nekhoteevka and Zhuravlyovka.
And geolocated footage shared by military bloggers and analysts appeared to show Ukrainian forces operating in the neighboring Kursk region close to the border with Belgorod.
If these reports prove accurate, military and political analysts said it would suggest that Ukraine is trying to show its allies it can seize the initiative.
“I could imagine Ukraine increasing the frequency of incursions across the Russian border to, first, distract Russian forces from Donbas, second, to create greater dissatisfaction with the war in Russia, and third, to show its own population and international partners Ukraine’s ability,” Alexander Libman, a professor of Russian and East European politics at the Free University of Berlin, told BI.
Mark Cancian, a retired Marine Corps colonel and a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said part of Ukraine’s strategy seems to be to “show that they can retake the initiative and not just stay on the defensive and absorb Russian blows.”
“The attack at Kursk gave hope that this would be the beginning of a victory plan, but one incursion was not enough,” he added.
Invading Russia
Ukraine launched a surprise incursion into Kursk on August 6, catching both the West and Russia off guard.
As of Tuesday, Ukraine claimed close to 500 square miles of Russian territory. Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander in chief of the Ukrainian military, said Ukrainian forces had captured 100 settlements, and forced Russia to redeploy 30,000 troops to Kursk.
Earlier this month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said one of the operation’s goals was to create a “buffer zone.”
And during a press conference in Kyiv on Tuesday, Zelenskyy said Kursk was the first step in a four-part plan for victory, which he would present to President Joe Biden in September.
Abishur Prakash, the founder of The Geopolitical Business, Inc., a strategy advisory firm in Toronto, told BI that Ukraine wants to present the US not just with a “theoretical blueprint” but an “actionable starting point.”
“If Zelenskyy goes to Washington and shows a Ukrainian beachhead in Russia, stretching from Kursk to Belgorod, it completely changes the optics and ideas as to the future of the war,” he said.
But military experts told BI that a new incursion could be a dangerous gamble, as Ukraine may lack the manpower and capacity to make progress while holding the 600-mile front line in eastern Ukraine.
“Ukraine would like to make multiple incursions but doesn’t have the forces to do that,” said Cancian.
In addition, Russian forces are “certainly” more alert to the possibility of cross-border attacks after what happened in Kursk, he said, while the proximity of Belgorod to Kursk means Russian units would be more “combat-oriented.”
Libman said he had “serious doubts” about whether Ukraine’s incursions would have “any success” in diverting Russian troops from the main 600-mile front in eastern Ukraine.
“I am sure that it is going to fail,” he said.
A race against time
It remains unclear whether Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk, and potential foray into Belgorod, will pay off and whether it can retain control of Russian territory.
According to Mark Temnycky, a nonresident fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, Ukraine may be motivated to make further advances now due to the growing uncertainty of the political landscape in the West, and increased pressure to enter peace negotiations with Russia.
“Ukraine may seek to establish control over Russian territory, which it will use as a bargaining chip in exchange for land now occupied by Russia,” he said, adding: “Holding land in Kursk and Belgorod will be important to this effect.”
But Richard Kouyoumdjian Inglis, a senior associated fellow at the UK’s Royal United Services Institute, said it’s not just Ukraine that’s trying to make advances.
“Both countries are trying to gain the maximum bargaining positions before the winter settles in,” he said.
