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August 13, 2024 - 4:00pm
The Ukrainian raid on the Kursk region of Russia has taken both the Russians and Ukraine’s allies by surprise. There is no doubt that the raid has embarrassed Moscow. The Russian Ministry of Defense clearly left a weak point open in their lines that the Ukrainians were able to exploit. Yet at the same time, the Ukrainians have not really given any indication of what the strategic or even tactical goal of the raid is.
There are three related aspects that stand out about the raid and make it look unusual. First, if the raid is aimed at taking and holding Russian territory it is not clear what logistical routes the Ukrainians intend on using for resupply. Secondly, the Ukrainian army is already stretched thin along the main frontlines, so it is odd that the Ukrainians would remove some of their best soldiers to undertake a raid on Kursk unless there was some goal. Third, the fighting conditions in Kursk are dismal for the Ukrainians — their lack of air defense means that they are sitting ducks for Russian aircraft, missiles and drones.
Some have said that the raid is purely to generate attention for the Ukrainians, and this may well be true. But an alternative interpretation is that the Ukrainians are trying to capture the nuclear power plant in Kurchatov in the West of the Kursk region. News reports say that the Ukrainians have advanced 30 kilometers into Russia. But Russian war maps show that there is fighting as far into Russia as Kromskie Byki which is 60 kilometers from the Russian border by road. The Kursk nuclear power plant is around 50 kilometers from Kromskie Byki by road so from a purely geographical point-of-view the evidence suggests that Ukraine may be trying to capture it. Russia is anticipating an attack and are already building fortifications around the power plant.
The logic here would run something like this. At the start of the war the Russians captured the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant which was a huge loss to Ukraine. The largest nuclear power plant in Europe, the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant generated around 27% of Ukraine’s electricity before the war. If the Ukrainians could capture the Kursk nuclear power plant and hold it, they would then potentially be able to trade it for the Zaporizhzhia plant when the two sides begin negotiations. The fact that fires broke out at the Zaporizhzhia power plant this week also suggests that nuclear power plants may be in the crosshairs.
This is the only way to rationalize the Kursk raid. If the Ukrainian army was not targeting an asset that would give them advantage in negotiations it would signal that they were willing to lose some of their best units in a suicide run that was purely put on to get the cameras back on them. But if the raid is a desperate last-ditch attempt to get leverage over the Russians before entering negotiations, the raid makes sense. It would line up with recent polling that suggests almost half the Ukrainian population are now keen on peace talks and President Zelensky saying that he was considering holding a referendum on peace talks.
Yet a consistent theme of Ukrainian strategy throughout the war is that they undertake actions without considering their impact on the mindset of the other side. The Russian population is angry that the Ukrainians have succeeded in bringing the war to Russian territory and so the Putin government will now have to take a more aggressive line, potentially closing the window on peace talks for the foreseeable future. Add to this the fact that Ukrainian frontlines are already stretched and have now been deprived of some of their best units and it becomes clear that the coming months could be very hard for Ukraine.
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