Ukraine’s seizure of Russian territory in the Kursk region is not merely a military operation. Above all, it is a bold strategic move to defeat Russia from within. The ultimate objectives are to undermine the Putin regime, sow conflicts within Russia’s political establishment, demonstrate Moscow’s weakness, and liberate Russia from its own imperialism.
Kyiv launched its invasion of Russia in early August with several elite units and in pursuit of specific military and political targets. By the end of August, over 1500 square kilometers had been captured and several small towns seized, including Sudza, the administrative center of Sudzhansky district. Throughout the mission of liberation, Ukraine’s military goals have been both demonstrative and operational.
Kyiv has demonstrated that despite the loss of territory in Donbas the Ukraine army is becoming stronger with new soldiers, weapons, and a growing domestic defense industry. The offensive inside Russia highlights the continuing failures of Russian forces. Moscow’s army only seizes territory when it obliterates towns and cities and loses tens of thousands of raw recruits as Ukrainian troops retreat to more defensible ground. Such a war of attrition has already eliminated over 600,000 dead or wounded Russian troops and large stocks of equipment. By taking the war into Russia itself, Kyiv has both implemented and upturned Putin’s arrogant declaration that “Russia has no borders.”
Operationally, the seizure of Russian territory can destroy facilities that enable rocket and drone launches against nearby Ukrainian cities such as Kharkhiv and Sumy, divert Russian troops and equipment from the Donbas, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhian fronts, and siphon off scarce resources to fortify other parts of Russia’s long borders. Ukraine’s weapons are also massively disrupting Russian command and control, communications, transport, airfields, and energy infrastructure that feeds the war. When launching its Kursk offensive, Kyiv simultaneously intensified its already successful drone war against military and fuel targets deeper inside Russia.
On the information war front, the Kremlin’s threats of nuclear strikes against any country invading its territory has been exposed as a bluff. Ukraine’s successful invasion reveals Moscow’s regime and its military and internal security forces as incompetent, corrupt, and unable to defend their own citizens. The Prigozhin military mutiny against the Russian defense ministry in June 2023 already exposed the fragility of internal security. Ukraine’s Kursk offensive has further widened the window on Russia’s failures, especially as Ukraine’s force are able to hold and administer the lands they captured.
Although the military incursion highlights Russian vulnerabilities, it has also stretched Ukrainian forces, who were already engaged in attritional warfare along a frontline of several hundred kilometers. Some Western military experts are speculating that the invasion may undermine Ukraine's ability to hold back Russian forces by diverting their troops to Kursk. In reality, Ukraine has the initiative as Russian military planners are confused where to concentrate their troops.
By seizing more territory in one month than Russians captured in a year, the Kursk operation has greatly boosted the morale of Ukrainian troops and society. The broader political purpose of the operation is to show to the Russian population that they will be better off not living under Moscow’s rule. Unlike Russian troops in Ukraine who regularly loot, rape, torture, and murder ordinary civilians, Ukraine’s military is disciplined and even provides food and water to local residents deprived of resources when their government, police, and army fled in panic.
Ukrainian soldiers have also been surprised by the number of people speaking Ukrainian in the liberated territories, indicating that the language and tradition has been preserved despite decades of russification. The three oblasts of Kursk, Belgorod, and Bryansk belonged to the independent Ukrainian People’s Republic declared in 1918 following the collapse of the Tsarist empire and before the Bolshevik counter-revolution and Moscow’s re-imperialization. The Bryansk region was Starodub, the Kursk region Suja, and the Bilhorod region was called Valuyki.
Kyiv is now laying the groundwork for a free Russia, beginning with taking over the functions of local and regional governments. Some anti-Putinists have suggested that an alternative Russian government be established in Kursk oblast. The Freedom of Russia Legion, which had previously penetrated Belgorod oblast, is seeking to participate in the liberation of Russian territory while the independent Congress of People’s Deputies in exile is prepared to announce a provisional Free Russia administration.Alternatively, Kursk oblast may be declared as an independent republic in order to underscore that Russia is fracturing into independent states.
The overarching goal of the Ukrainian operation is to underscore to Russia’s citizens and Western leaders that the Muscovite empire is brittle, its military is defeatable, and the obsolete and artificial state is heading toward collapse. Nations, republics, and regions will have the historical opportunity to seize local control as the state ruptures and to create new state entities. Ordinary Russians have not reacted to defend their territory during the Ukrainian incursion unlike the Ukrainian resistance to the Russian invasion in 2022. They have not flocked to join the armed forces or other security units. It appears that ordinary citizens have been conditioned to show loyalty or acquiescence to whoever is stronger.
Reports also indicate that local, regional, and federal officials are turning against each other in an attempt to divert blame for Ukraine’s successful invasion. The Kremlin is trying to silence pro-war bloggers who describe how easy it was for Ukrainian forces to capture territory in Kursk. The Kremlin is also trying to downplay the importance of the war inside Russia by dismissing it as an “anti-terrorist operation.” Putin simply cannot admit that the war he launched against Ukraine has now boomeranged back into Russia and the country’s survival will increasingly be challenged
Janusz Bugajski is a Senior Fellow at the Jamestown Foundation in Washington DC. His recent book is Failed State: A Guide to Russia’s Rupture. His new book to be published in October is titled Pivotal Poland: Europe’s Rising Power.
