Ukraine's Kursk Gambit

The major development over the last weeks or so has been Ukraine’s invasion of territorial Russia in the adjacent to Ukraine, Kursk region. Currently, there is a very heavy realtime fog of war and communications spin from every side whether this is significant or no big deal. Firstly to set the stage what happened: Ukrainian army launched a surprise attack on August 6th into proper Russia itself and has currently overrun 620 sq miles of territory.¹ The consensus opinion is best capured like so: this is “boosting the morale of Ukrainian forces and gaining a stronger negotiating position for potential ceasefire talks. Russia has enjoyed the strategic initiative for many months, and it helps Ukraine to show that it can still surprise Russia and wreak havoc on its forces.“²

Now for NuWhy takes on this situation:

I do believe that for Ukraine this is a desperate gamble because they are simply losing out the ongoing attritional battle in the Donbass. With the tools they have, it is better to hit somewhere completely different and try to change the overall situation by going on the attack. This type of thinking worked in the Ancient World, more specifically the Second Punic War when Rome could not defeat Hannibal on its home territory. So instead, in a brilliant gambit by Scipio, Romans invaded Carthage home territory itself and Carthage recalled Hannibal back home to fight the Romans there, and ultimately losing anyway.³ This current gambit would be a success if Russia did the same thing but at least so far there has been no such thing. Russia is trying to contain and stay the course without any major re-alignment of troops. Let’s see if it stays that way.

In the major Western press, this is discussed as embarrassment to Russia and Putin and an asset for negotiations for Ukraine. What genuinely surprises me, is that there is almost no mention at least in the NY Times or BBC and similar of symbolic significance of Kursk itself. I would think to anyone from former Soviet Union regions and most likely Germany, the word “Kursk“ would jump out as the turning point of WWII, from which Germany would not recover strategic initiative. Apparently this is a complete blindspot for everyone else.

There are 33 mentions of Kursk in the last month, and zero of them refer to significant WWII battle of the same name

There are libraries full of books on the Battle of Kursk in 1943.. some can be purchased for as little as 1 EUR.. yet this somehow escapes the current storyline. Why does that matter… well Putin has been building a narrative that there is a threat next to Russia which they have to “de-Nazify“ and then Ukraine literally attacks in the place familiar to everyone in Russia as a great WWII historic victory, refighting the Battle and this will somehow be an asset in a negotiated outcome. So Putin would have personally lost the second Battle of Kursk? I would find this very difficult to believe that this would be negotiated.

I have mentioned Kursk here before when comparatively thinking about the Ukraine’s failed Summer “Counteroffensive“, but would never have thought that there is a new battle on literally the same ground. That is a surprise for sure but ultimately I do not believe this gambit will work out for Ukraine. Where do you keep going here, further into Russia? This has been tried before.. and I believe Russia will not pivot away from Donbass objectives but will trap Ukraine where it is.

Ultimately I believe this is a turning point but in a different way.. it is truly a shift from conventional fighting into a kind of war without fronts and all kinds of soft targets would be under threat for both Russia and Ukraine. Hoping that nuclear stations remain intact 🤞.

1. Map as of August 8th, 2024. Note the zoom out part in the upper right

2. Six Observations—and Open Questions—on Ukraine’s Kursk Operation | Lawfare (lawfaremedia.org)

3. Scipio Africanus - Wikipedia