Russian troops appear to have halted the northward advance of Ukrainian soldiers who launched a surprise cross-border attack five days ago, but have not stopped their eastward push, military analysts say, as Moscow tries to contain Kyiv’s largest assault into Russian territory since the start of the war.
Yet despite any Russian boasting that might garner, the incursion into the southwestern region of Kursk has also prompted questions over how it was allowed to happen in the first place.
Andrei Gurulyov, a retired military officer who is now a member of Parliament, on Friday condemned Russia’s response and level of preparedness. “There is no military system in place for guarding the state border, no reserves and no second lines of defense,” he said on Telegram, adding, “If the Ukrainian Armed Forces spent two months preparing for this, how did we miss it?”
The assault has also left analysts wondering why Ukraine would take such a risk, with some suggesting a desire to draw Russian troops away from the front lines. On Friday, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine alluded to another possible benefit: newly captured Russian troops who could be traded for Ukrainian prisoners of war.
In an overnight speech, Mr. Zelensky thanked Ukrainian troops “who are replenishing the ‘exchange fund.’”
“This is extremely important and has been particularly effective over the past three days,” he said. “We must return freedom to all our people who remain in Russian captivity.”
To counter the incursion, Russia’s military appears to be relying mostly on units that were already deployed near the area, according to an analysis by the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank. Most of those units consist of military conscripts and irregular forces, as opposed to the battle-hardened soldiers fighting in Ukraine.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Friday that it was “continuing to repel” Ukraine’s military. And Alexander Kharchenko, a military correspondent for RIA Novosti, a Russian state-run news agency, said on Saturday on Telegram that while Ukrainian troops had easily entered populated areas in the region days earlier, “now they are met by a dense barrier in front of every village.”
It is not clear whether Russia will redeploy better-equipped forces from the front lines inside Ukraine to suppress Kyiv’s foray into Russian soil. That would take time. It would also relieve pressure on Ukrainian troops who are outnumbered and have been losing ground in eastern and southern Ukraine.
So far, Russian forces have not let up in their frontline pushes. In recent days, they have made some inroads near the embattled eastern Ukrainian towns of Chasiv Yar, Toretsk and Pokrovsk, the Institute for the Study of War said. On Friday, the British Defense Ministry said that Russian troops in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine had gained ground, pushing to about 10 miles from Pokrovsk.
Ukrainian officials have said little publicly about their decision to launch the cross-border attack on Tuesday, aside from pointing out that the country’s allies have supported the offensive, at least tacitly.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Kyiv’s allies have been wary of any Ukrainian incursions onto Russian soil, fearing that they could provoke Moscow and escalate the war. Matthew Miller, a spokesman for the U.S. State Department, suggested this past week that the Ukrainian incursion did not violate American guidance.
After steadily losing ground this year, Ukraine’s success with this latest offensive has buoyed the country’s morale, at least if social media is any guide. The head of Ukraine’s Postal Service joked on Telegram that he planned to open a post office in a Russian town that Ukrainian forces are fighting to capture.
The new offensive has also alarmed the Russian public, and if conscripts are killed, that could bring the war home in a way that losses along the front lines have not.
On Friday, the situation remained tense along the border, with both sides trying to evacuate residents. Russia declared states of enhanced security in the regions of Kursk, Belgorod and Bryansk. It said that would include counterterrorism operations, which allow for restrictive military and security actions inside Russia, as applied to parts of Chechnya for years during the war there.
The Ukrainian authorities, perhaps preparing for retaliation, said on Friday that they were evacuating 20,000 people from the Sumy region, across the border from Kursk.
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