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Ukraine is banking on its efforts to hold the Russian territory of Kursk amid intense pressure from Russian and North Korean forces to retake it, apparently betting that the region could be a valuable card in potential negotiations with Moscow.
After weeks of Russian and North Korean advances in Kursk, Ukraine launched a minor offensive on Sunday to push back forces and maintain control over the roughly 300 square miles Ukrainian troops still hold.
With less than two weeks before President-elect Trump takes office promising to negotiate an end to the war, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appears to be redoubling Kursk as a strategic necessity and a bargaining chip, despite persistent questions about the operation. tactical value.
Zelensky called Operation Kursk, which was launched in a surprise attack in August and marked the first time Russia was invaded by a foreign ally since World War II, “one of our most important victories , not just last year but throughout the war.”
“Russia had to withdraw almost 60,000 troops from the Ukrainian front to deal with it. As of this Monday, our troops have maintained a buffer zone on Russian territory for five months.” wrote on Thursday on social platform X.
Ukraine likely has the ability to hold onto that territory for the foreseeable future, but the troops face a stiff challenge against the roughly 12,000 North Korean troops allied with Russian forces in Kursk.
Serhiy Grabsky, a reserve colonel in the Ukrainian army, said the new push at Kursk was more about military strategy than negotiations and focused on distracting Russia.
“The main idea of this in simple words: to keep Russian forces busy,” he said.
Grabsky said it was also a message to Trump.
“This action … shows the Western alliances that Ukraine did not lose battle capabilities, that Ukraine can resist and will resist with or without American support.”
Since Russia began reclaiming territory in the fall, Ukraine has lost about 40 percent of the land it once held in Kursk. But a senior defense official said that despite the pressure, Ukraine “continues to withstand an extraordinary set of Russian assaults” in Kursk and on Ukraine’s eastern front.
the officer he told reporters this week that Kiev can only be in a position to negotiate with Russian President Vladimir Putin with more pressure on Moscow.
“Our calculation is that Putin is not one to give up something he doesn’t have to give up,” the official said. “And Putin will be more impressed when he is faced with a negotiation, and when he is faced with a war in which he has not yet achieved his goals and in which the costs are piling up, he will be more inclined to be reasonable.”
The new Ukrainian offensive is aimed at the towns of Berdin and Bolshoye Soldatskoye, north of Sudzha, but has been a limited effort, securing about three Russian villages and about nine square miles.
Russian military bloggers claimed Thursday that Ukraine had been cleared of Berdin and that Russian forces were advancing northwest and southeast of Sudzha. according to the last Report of the Institute for the Study of War.
Mick Ryan, a retired Australian army major general who closely follows and writes about Ukraine, said the country was likely seizing the opportunity to inflict casualties on Russia. Zelensky said this week that Russia suffered 38,000 casualties in Kursk.
“They inflicted significant casualties on the Russians and North Koreans recently and saw an opportunity to take more ground or even get out of the front line,” he said.
Ryan said Ukraine would also benefit from having whatever amount of territory it can when and if negotiations begin.
“Russia occupies 18 percent of Ukraine, and Kursk is much, much smaller than 1 percent of Russia,” he said. “There’s a pretty big differential in held terrain. That said, it’s always better to hold some of the enemy’s territory when you go into a negotiation.”
Ukraine faces a ticking clock as Trump prepares to take office on January 20. The president-elect campaigned on a promise to end the war on his first day in office, but has scaled back those ambitions in recent weeks.
Both sides face sharp challenges, with Russia suffering heavy losses and in the face of an economic recessionwhile Ukraine struggles to secure labor and maintain ground.
Rafael Loss, a political member of the European Council on Foreign Relations, said he was not sure whether Ukraine could hold the Kursk territory for much longer, describing the region as “increasingly difficult” to defend.
“If the Ukrainians can demonstrate over the next two months that they will not be cut off at Kursk and that the overall situation of the Russian armed forces inside Ukraine and across the front continues to deteriorate at an unsustainable rate, this could very well form part of the negotiations,” he said.
“But at this point, I think the Kremlin is probably looking at the trend lines that look bad for Russia, but worse for Ukraine,” Loss added.
President Biden has tried to strengthen Ukraine’s hands for the expected negotiations. The US has sent $122 billion in total aid to Ukraine, about $66 billion of which is military aid.
“If he’s going to oversee this negotiation, (we want to) make sure that (Ukraine) does it from a position of strength and that President Trump can get the strongest deal possible,” Secretary of State Antony said They blink. at a press conference on Wednesday in Paris
The latest security aid from the Biden administration was announced Thursday, and several billion dollars approved by Congress will remain for the Trump administration.
Trump has offered few details on how he might resolve the war, but his top Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, has called to threaten to revoke aid to bring Kiev to the table and increase weapons if Moscow becomes an obstacle to conversations.
The centerpiece of the discussions is that Russia would claim the four territories it occupies in eastern Ukraine in exchange for security guarantees for Ukraine.
But Robert Kagan, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said Ukraine “will probably lose the war in the next 12 to 18 months” and that Putin is not interested in real negotiations that would keep Ukraine intact.
“Ukraine will not lose in a nice, negotiated way, with vital territories sacrificed but an independent Ukraine kept alive, sovereign and protected by Western security guarantees.” he wrote in a piece for The Atlantic. “Instead, he faces complete defeat, loss of sovereignty and total Russian control.”
Kagan said Trump should consider the choice “between accepting a humiliating strategic defeat on the global stage and immediately doubling down on American support for Ukraine while there is still time.”
Since the Kursk invasion, Ukraine has faced questions about whether the operation was removing crucial weapons and manpower from the front lines in the east, where Russians continue to advance, particularly in the Donetsk region .
But Zelensky and other Ukrainian officials insist the Kursk attack has been vital in diverting Russian troops from the front lines, removing military assets, creating opportunities for prisoner exchanges and seizing ground that could be used for the negotiations
Brock Bierman, a visiting senior researcher at the German Marshall Fund, said the limited nature of the Kursk operation could signal Ukraine’s sense of Russia’s capabilities and could lead to a larger offensive maneuver.
Bierman also said that Ukraine would benefit from any operation to strengthen its position “as the time approaches for the Trump administration to take over.”
“Anything they can do up front, both Russia and Ukraine, they’re going to do what they can so that once the Trump administration comes in, they’re going to have a lot more results,” he said. “I see both sides trying to take advantage as much as they can because Trump is, in fact, going to end this war one way or another.”
