The true purpose of Ukraine's surprise offensive into the Russian agricultural region of Kursk has been hotly debated since it was launched in August. The complete failure of the 2023 "counter-offensive" led many to believe that Ukraine's rumored troop shortages were far worse than initially reported. Some believed that the Kursk offensive was designed to allay fears among allies that Kyiv was no longer capable of taking ground from the Russians.
The invasion of Kursk was successful primarily because the area was weakly defended, and it was weakly defended because it has no strategic value. It's a collection of farming towns with no industrial infrastructure, and the nearest vital site (a nuclear power plant) is too far away for the Ukrainians to reach. Almost every tactician not working for Ukraine has questioned the offensive, calling it potentially one of the greatest military blunders in modern history.
Why? Because Kursk has siphoned up some of Ukraine's best troops and weaponry and increased the ground they have to defend with the limited forces they have available. In a war of attrition, the losing side must seek to shrink and strengthen their area of defense instead of spreading themselves thin. Ukraine did the opposite.
Vladimir Zelensky claims that Kursk was designed to lure large numbers of Russian troops away from the eastern front and stop their advance. If this is the case, then the effort was unsuccessful. Russian attacks increased in the period after the Kursk invasion and now Kremlin forces are in the process of taking at least three key cities which will cement their control of the Donbas.
Another theory is that Kursk was intended to convince NATO allies that Vladimir Putin's "red lines" are meaningless and that Ukraine should be given access to long range missiles for striking deep into the heart of Russia. If that was the plan, then it has succeeded. The Biden Administration and NATO have given Zelensky the green light to use ATACMS and Storm Shadow missiles at will.
Another possible advantage for Ukraine in the "red line" narrative is that it could be used to convince NATO countries to deploy troops to the region, thus triggering WWIII. This is, at bottom, the only hope Ukraine has to push Russia back - A massive influx of western troops and hardware. But at the same time the risk of a wider war with nuclear implications grows exponentially. There are plenty of people in Ukraine, elites in globalist think tanks and officials in NATO that have no problem with that.
The problem with Kursk is that Ukraine needs to hold it until they can get the response they want from the west, but Russia appears to be poised to take the ground back. And, if these reports are accurate, then maintaining a presence in Kursk may have backfired on Ukraine.
Precise numbers on casualties from either side of the conflict are not to be trusted, but there has been a sudden surge of activity by Russian troops with steady gains, pushing Ukraine towards the border with Sumy. Ukrainian soldiers say they were not prepared for the aggressive Russian response in Kursk and cannot counterattack or pull back.
“There’s no other option,” said one drone unit commander. “We’ll fight here because if we just pull back to our borders, they won’t stop; they’ll keep advancing.”
"We have, as they say, hit a hornet's nest," said a major in the 95th Airborne Assault Brigade. "We have stirred up another hot spot."
Claims of thousands of North Korean troops in Kursk abound in the establishment media, but proof of these troops is thin and questionable. So far, there has not been hard evidence of a single NK soldier captured by Ukraine. Even if these troops are so disciplined that they are ready to commit suicide rather than be taken alive, with "thousands" of them in the field at least a few should have been captured by now. The most likely explanation is that some NK troops are in Kursk, but nowhere near the amount claimed by Ukraine.
Furthermore, front line battle map project Deep State has come under threat from the Ukrainian military and their operations have been shut down, or at the very least they have come under intense scrutiny. Deep State has in the past operated in a way that seems to hide data in favor of the Ukrainian government, but in most cases their maps have proven to be relatively accurate. The fact that military officials have taken action to silence the project suggests that Ukraine is losing badly and wants to hide the details as much as possible.
If Kursk is about to be retaken and Ukraine retreats, then this leaves the door open for Russian forces now amassed near Sumy to mobilize down into Ukraine from the North. In tandem with the expanding attacks in the east, Ukraine could be cut in half.
