Two senior U.S. officials said on Thursday that Russia has diverted “several thousand troops” from Ukraine to defend against the Ukrainian incursion into Kursk.
The Ukrainians surprised Russia (and the Biden administration) by pushing across the border to invade Russia’s Kursk region on August 6. Ukrainian forces are reportedly still fighting in Kursk ten days later, despite confident Russian pronouncements that the incursion was strategically insignificant and would be quickly repelled.
Many observers deemed the counter-invasion an odd choice given how Ukraine has been desperately fighting to hold back advancing Russian forces on several fronts but one theory advanced was that Kyiv hoped to draw Russian troops out of Ukraine and back into Kursk – and possibly Belgorod, which declared a state of emergency on Wednesday as Ukraine showered it with drones and missiles.
According to the two anonymous “senior American defense officials” who spoke with CNN on Thursday, there are signs the Ukrainian offensive is causing Russia to pull “multiple brigade-sized elements made up of at least 1,000 troops each” out of Ukraine and send them to reinforce the new front in Kursk.
“It is apparent to us that Mr. Putin and the Russian military are diverting some resources, some units, towards the Kursk Oblast to ostensibly counter what the Ukrainians are doing,” White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said on Thursday.
Kirby added the shift of Russian forces did not mean “Putin has given up military operations in the northeast part of Ukraine, or even down towards the south, towards places like Zaporizhya.”
CNN added that Ukraine “impressed” Biden officials with its daring offensive, including its ability to keep the attack secret from the U.S. government.
On the other hand, analysts noted Russia still has a huge number of troops deployed in Ukraine, and its most effective front-line combat units do not appear to be part of the reallocation toward Kursk, at least not yet. The forces Ukraine sent into Kursk may not be its finest troops either, as those forces are still needed to slow Russia’s advance.
“We haven’t seen a substantial move just yet, and we can’t tell whether that’s just because they’re only just getting started moving forces, or whether they just don’t have the forces to move,” said one of CNN’s senior intelligence sources.
The other source fretted that Ukraine is “committing pretty inexperienced troops” to the Kursk attack and cannot “afford” to lose them. Worse still, the Kursk attack may have left Ukraine’s defenses dangerously thin, creating “opportunities for Russia to seize advantage and break through.”
The New York Times (NYT) reported on Friday that Russian troops have captured several strategic Ukrainian villagers and are now just eight miles from Pokrovsk, one of the last important Ukrainian defensive positions in the eastern Donetsk region.
Donetsk is one of the Ukrainian areas with heavy Russian populations that Vladimir Putin unilaterally declared as an “independent republic” when he invaded Ukraine in February 2022. The situation in Pokrovsk is dire enough to make the city’s military administration advise civilian residents to evacuate, although they have not yet issued a firm evacuation order.
“Military experts say that one goal of the surprise cross-border assault that Ukraine began last week in Kursk is to compel Moscow to divert troops from the front lines in Ukraine to reinforce its own border region. But so far, Russia has withdrawn only a limited number of units from the Ukrainian battlefield, instead seeking to counter attacks with less experienced combat units in Russia,” the NYT wrote.
Some analysts suggested Putin might even increase the operational tempo of Russian forces in Donetsk to compensate for the Ukrainian push into Kursk, hoping that a big win on Ukrainian soil will mollify Russians who cannot understand how Ukraine was able to capture so much territory in Kursk easily.
The Ukrainian advance into Kursk seems to be slowing, partly because resistance from Russian forces is increasing and reinforcements are on the way, and because Ukraine must now worry about holding and defending the towns it has captured. Most analysts doubted the Ukrainians could spare the manpower and munitions to hold out in Kursk for very long.
The Associated Press (AP) noted Ukraine’s attack force faced only “lightly armed Russian border guards and small infantry units consisting of inexperienced conscripts” when they pushed into Kursk, and the attack seemed to leave Russia in a state of “tactical and operational shock.” Having begun to recover from that shock, the Russians are now digging trenches to keep Ukraine from advancing any further.
The first Russian reserves to arrive in Kursk reportedly made some rookie mistakes, such as leaving their transport vehicles parked within range of Ukrainian rocket artillery. The next wave of reinforcements probably will not be as careless, so Ukrainian planners might consider whether pocketing their morale victory and pulling out of Russian territory would be the smartest move.
The Washington Post on Thursday quoted injured Ukrainian troops returning from Belgorod who said fighting was “fierce” along the second front opened there.
According to these sources, Russian forces in Belgorod were much better prepared to repel an invasion than those in Kursk, and the area was more heavily fortified with mines and tank traps. The Ukrainian troops who went into Belgorod seemed far less familiar with the terrain than those who invaded Kursk.
Thanks to either better leadership or lessons learned from Kursk, the Russian defenders in Belgorod seem much better coordinated. Russian units in Kursk have been arguing with each other, pointing fingers of blame for the Ukrainian invasion and demanding the sacking of allegedly inept commanders.
The Moscow Times on Friday quoted a pro-Kremlin group called the All-Russia People’s Front claiming that one of its medical staffers and a media coordinator were killed by artillery fire in Kursk. The report did not indicate whether Russian or Ukrainian artillery inflicted the casualties, but it serves as more evidence that fighting continues in the area.
Other pro-Russian media sources said Ukraine destroyed a key bridge in Kursk using a HIMARS rocket system provided by the United States. According to this account, the artillery that killed the All-Russia People’s Front operatives earlier in the day was from the early stages of the Ukrainian attack that ultimately destroyed the bridge.
The targeted bridge, located about seven miles from the Ukrainian border, had been used by the Russian military to supply its forces in the area. With the bridge down, Ukrainian forces might have a better chance to capture the Glushkovsky district, which Russia is currently attempting to evacuate.
Russia’s state-run RT.com on Friday collected anecdotes of Ukrainian forces allegedly abusing Russian civilians in Kursk, including Ukrainian troops desecrating graves and allegedly imitating Nazis to terrorize elderly Russians with memories of World War II. These reports may be propaganda intended to whip up anti-Ukrainian sentiment among Russians, but they also inadvertently confirm Ukrainian troops still control substantial territory in Kursk.
The Ukrainian government insists its forces are showing proper respect to civilians in Kursk, who they described as “abandoned” by the Putin regime.
“The citizens abandoned by Russia are mostly elderly people, people with disabilities, and families with children. They need food, water and medicine,” Ukrainian Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said on Friday. Klymenko’s ministry posted photos of Ukrainian soldiers bringing food and portable shelters to Russian civilians in Kursk.
Former Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolay Patrushev on Friday rejected reports that the Biden administration was blindsided by the Ukrainian counter-offensive, insisting that Washington must have helped Kyiv plan and execute the attack.
“The U.S. leadership’s claims of non-involvement in Kyiv’s actions in Kursk Region do not correspond to reality,” Patrushev railed. “Without their participation and direct support, Kyiv would not have ventured into Russian territory.”
Patrushev said Western powers put the “criminal junta” of President Volodymyr Zelensky in charge of Ukraine, and have “supplied Kyiv with weapons, military instructors, and continuous intelligence while controlling the actions of neo-Nazis.”
Contrary to the above-mentioned Russian propaganda about Ukrainian troops rampaging across Kursk, digging up graves, and role-playing as Nazis, Patrushev claimed the Kursk invasion has been repelled and was never anything more than a desperate “criminal action” undertaken before “the imminent collapse of the neo-Nazi Kyiv regime.”
