Ukraine's operation in Kursk Oblast has allowed Ukrainian forces to at least temporarily seize the battlefield initiative in one area of the frontline and contest Russia's theater-wide initiative. Russia's possession of the theater-wide initiative since November 2023 has allowed Russia to determine the location, time, scale, and requirements of fighting in Ukraine and forced Ukraine to expend materiel and manpower in reactive defensive operations. The Ukrainian operation in Kursk Oblast, however, has forced the Kremlin and Russian military command to react and redeploy forces and means to the sector where Ukrainian forces have launched attacks. Russian forces, however, were notably not conducting active operations in Kursk Oblast. Russia has been leveraging its possession of the theater-wide initiative to pressure Ukraine and attempt to prevent Ukrainian forces from accumulating manpower and materiel for future counteroffensive operations while determining a tempo of fighting that would allow Russian forces to sustain consistent ongoing offensive operations. Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Russian military command likely incorrectly assessed that Ukraine lacked the capability to contest the initiative, and Ukraine's ability to achieve operational surprise and contest the theater-wide initiative is challenging the operational and strategic assumptions underpinning current Russian offensive efforts in Ukraine.
The Ukrainian operation in Kursk Oblast and further possible Ukrainian cross-border incursions force a decision point on the Kremlin and the Russian military command about whether to view the thousand-kilometer-long international border with northeastern Ukraine as a legitimate frontline that Russia must defend instead of a dormant area of the theater as they have treated it since Fall 2022. Moscow’s response may require the Russian military command to consider the manpower and materiel requirements for defending the international border as part of its theater-wide campaign design and can therefore impose long-term operational planning constraints that Russia previously did not face. The Russian military command has essentially treated the international border with northeastern Ukraine as the dormant front of the theater following the Russian withdrawal from Kyiv, Chernihiv, and Sumy oblasts in Spring 2022 and the Ukrainian liberation of significant territory in Kharkiv Oblast in Fall 2022. Russian and Ukrainian forces have conducted routine sabotage and reconnaissance activities, indirect fire, and cross-border strikes along the border since Fall 2022, but none of this routine activity has appeared to generate wider Russian operational concerns for defending Russian territory in the area. Russia has sought to use the threat of cross-border incursions to draw and fix Ukrainian forces along the border by concentrating rear elements in the border zone, but Ukrainian concentrations in the area do not appear to have generated such responses among Russian forces. The Russian military activated part of this "dormant frontline" when it launched the offensive operation into northern Kharkiv Oblast in early May 2024 — a Russian effort to extend the frontline further into northeastern Ukraine to draw and fix Ukrainian forces along the border in hopes of weakening the overall Ukrainian frontline in aggregate.
Previous notable incursions into Russia did not change the Kremlin's perception of the international border area, but the Ukrainian operation in Kursk Oblast will force the Kremlin to make a decision. All Russian pro-Ukrainian forces have conducted several cross-border raids into Russia since Fall 2022, but the Kremlin and the Russian military command resisted calls for redeploying forces to protect the border at that time. Russian President Vladimir Putin assessed at that time that those limited raids posed no medium- to long-term threat to Russian territory and that redeployments to the international border would be a less effective allocation of resources that could otherwise support large-scale defensive and offensive operations in Ukraine. The current Ukrainian incursion, however, poses significant threats to Russian military operations in Ukraine and Putin's regime stability and demands a response. The Ukrainian operation in Kursk Oblast will likely expand the Kremlin's consideration for what type of Ukrainian operations are possible along the border. Russia's prolonged treatment of the international border area as a dormant frontline is a strategic failure in imagination.
Russia's treatment of the international border area as a dormant front has given Russia more flexibility to accumulate and commit manpower and material to military operations in Ukraine. Russia has spent considerable resources to build fortifications along the international border area but has not allocated the manpower and materiel to significantly man and defend those fortifications. Sparsely manned and equipped border fortifications proved insufficient at preventing Ukrainian gains at the outset of the Ukrainian incursion into Kursk Oblast, and the Russian military command will likely conclude that further manpower and equipment commitments to the international border will be required to effectively leverage fortified positions to prevent possible future Ukrainian cross-border incursions and deter larger Ukrainian incursion efforts in the long-term. This conclusion will narrow the flexibility Russia has enjoyed in committing manpower and materiel to its ongoing offensive efforts in Ukraine, and the Russian military command will have to consider the requirements for border defense when determining what resources it can allocate to future large-scale offensive and defensive efforts in Ukraine.
Key Takeaways:
- Ukraine's operation in Kursk Oblast has allowed Ukrainian forces to at least temporarily seize the battlefield initiative in one area of the frontline and contest Russia's theater-wide initiative.
- The Ukrainian operation in Kursk Oblast and further possible Ukrainian cross-border incursions force a decision point on the Kremlin and the Russian military command about whether to view the thousand-kilometer-long international border with northeastern Ukraine as a legitimate frontline that Russia must defend instead of a dormant area of the theater as they have treated it since Fall 2022. Moscow’s response may require the Russian military command to consider the manpower and materiel requirements for defending the international border as part of its theater-wide campaign design and can therefore impose long-term operational planning constraints that Russia previously did not face.
- Geolocated footage and Russian and Ukrainian reporting from August 10 and 11 indicate that Ukrainian forces advanced westward and northwestward in Kursk Oblast, although Russian sources largely claimed that Russian forces have stabilized the situation.
- The hastily assembled and disparate Russian force grouping responding to the Ukrainian incursion into Kursk Oblast is comprised of Russian units likely below their doctrinal end-strength and ill-prepared to establish the joint command and control (C2) structures necessary to coordinate operations.
- Russia’s redeployment of battalion and lower-level units rather than full brigades and regiments to defend in Kursk Oblast is likely contributing to Russian forces' difficulty in quickly establishing effective C2 in the area.
- Confusion about the status of Russian conscripts fighting in Kursk Oblast is a consequence of ineffective C2 and will likely continues to further strain Russia’ C2 structures to respond to the Kursk operation.
- Russian officials acknowledged that Ukrainian mobile groups advanced upwards of 25 kilometers into Belovsky Raion, Kursk Oblast on the night of August 10 to 11, but there are no indications that these groups remain in the area or that Ukrainian forces are operating beyond the immediate border area in Belovsky Raion.
- The reported rapid Ukrainian maneuver in Belovsky Raion suggests that Russian forces along the international border remain poorly prepared to respond to further Ukrainian cross-border incursions.
- Russian sources claimed on August 11 that small Ukrainian groups attempted unsuccessful limited cross-border incursions into western Belgorod Oblast.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky officially acknowledged the Ukrainian cross-border incursion into Kursk Oblast for the first time on August 10.
- A top Ukrainian defense official reportedly stated that Russian forces have somewhat reduced the intensity of assaults in eastern Ukraine but that otherwise the situation remains largely unchanged amid the Ukrainian operation in Kursk Oblast, which is consistent with ISW's observations of Russian offensive tempo across the theater.
- Russian forces recently advanced near Kupyansk and Donetsk City.
- Russian propagandists are attempting to use the Ukrainian incursion into Kursk Oblast to promote Russian force generation efforts.
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[ISW] 러시아의 공세 캠페인 평가, 2024년 8월 14일
[ISW] 러시아 공세 캠페인 평가, 2024년 8월 10일