The Ukrainian attack inside Russia took many at the Kremlin by surprise. What are Kyiv’s objectives?
Russia declared a federal emergency state following Ukraine’s surprise incursion into its internationally-recognized territory. The Ukrainian army launched an attack into Russia’s Kursk region, bordering Ukraine in the north, taking the enemy by surprise.
This is the first major development on the ground since last year’s failed Ukrainian counter-offensive. In the spring of 2023, Ukraine launched a slow and grueling counter-offensive in the southern and eastern parts of the front. Its strategic goals were the liberation of Bakhmut in the Donetsk region and Tokhmak in the south.
But Russia’s entrenched and well-prepared defenses and the under equipment of the Ukrainian army turned this attack into a failure.
Since then, Russia made slow but steady advances in the east, threatening Ukraine’s vital military conjunctions in Pokrovsk and Sloviansk. Though the Kremlin has not achieved a major breakthrough, the situation was slowly deteriorating for Ukraine and many feared a total collapse of the eastern front.
Then, earlier this year, the United States approved a $61 billion aid package to Ukraine, bolstering its defenses and slowing the Russian advance.
Despite the package’s approval, many in the West and Ukraine believed the country had mostly exhausted its military capabilities. Several Western and Ukrainian officials began talking about negotiations with the Kremlin, whose army also appeared worn out from three years of bloody conflict.
Ukraine’s attack on Tuesday, however, may have changed the situation.
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The Russian economy is on the brink of recession
What is happening in Russia?
On Tuesday, Ukrainian forces entered Russian territory for the first time since the start of the war. There had been previous attacks on Russian soil, but never a full-blown incursion.
The attack caught Russia by total surprise, forcing the Kremlin to announce a state of federal emergency on Friday. According to Moscow sources, Russian reinforcements are on their way to the region.
The immediate objective of the Ukrainian army seemed to be the village of Sudzha and its nearby gas depot. The town is partially under Ukrainian control at the time of writing.
A Ukrainian source told the Washington Post that Ukraine’s army seized over 100 square miles of Russian territory. The Russian press agency TASS claimed Ukraine lost 945 people and 12 tanks in the attack. Neither claim has been independently verified yet.
The Ukrainian military did not disclose the long-term strategic objective of the attack. “Such a coordinated ground force movement responds to a clear military objective, yet unknown, that requires extreme operational security,” Mathieu Boulegue, a defense analyst at the Chatham House think tank in London, said.
Speculations say Ukraine’s objectives vary. First, they wanted to bring the war closer to the Russian people, who hadn’t felt the consequences of their government’s invasion yet. Moreover, the Ukrainian military probably wanted to divert Russian forces from the occupied regions in Ukraine. Finally, Kyiv likely needed this attack as a bargaining chip to use in future negotiations.
Whatever the objective, others have called the Ukrainian attack a major gamble. Ukraine’s military resources are running thin, and its Western allies appear less keen to support Kyiv than in previous years.
As Nick Paton Walsh from CNN put it, the attack “marks a rare and substantial gamble with Kyiv’s limited resources, and so may herald the Ukrainians’ belief that greater change is ahead.”
