Ukraine’s Kursk Offensive Was a Miserable Failure

August 6, 2024 will forever live in the minds of Russians and Ukrainians as a moment of great consequence. On that day, Ukrainian troops embarrassed Moscow’s army yet again by conducting a mini-blitzkrieg into Kursk, a region in Russia. In the opening days of the operation, Kiev sent between 10,000 and 12,000 troops into Kursk, according to an estimate by Russia expert Dara Massicot. The surprise incursion marked the first time a foreign army invaded Russian territory since Hitler’s armies stampeded toward Stalingrad in World War II.

The Russian troops in the area, mostly young conscripts with no experience in battlefield conditions, were about as confused and demoralized as their superiors. The Ukrainians, meanwhile, were jubilant, pointing to the incursion as an example that Kiev still had a few tricks up its sleeve and retained the combat capability to plan and execute a successful offensive. “Russia brought the war to our land and should feel what it has done,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said two days into the operation.

Seven months later, the picture is much bleaker. Moscow, after losing around 500 square miles of Russian territory, finally got its act together and conducted a counteroffensive of its own in September, throwing tens of thousands of Russian and North Korean bodies into the fray and dropping the same type of glide bombs they have used mercilessly against Ukrainian cities since the war started.

The Ukrainian army was able to inflict significant casualties as they defended their positions—Kiev’s General Staff reported on February 6 that 16,000 Russian forces were killed—but the onslaught was ultimately too difficult to withstand indefinitely. Russia’s strategy in Kursk was identical to its strategy in Ukraine: throw enough manpower, munitions, and hardware at the problem, and enemy lines will eventually buckle. At the time of writing, the Russian Defense Ministry has re-claimed the town of Sudzha and Ukrainian troops are withdrawing from the region.

All of this begs the question: in the end, was the Kursk offensive worth it?

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Daniel
DePetris

Fellow