Russian authorities are scrambling to bring the situation in Kursk under control, a week after Ukrainian forces launched a surprise attack in the region that has left a swathe of Russian territory under Kyiv’s control.
Russia used missiles, drones and airstrikes on Tuesday in an attempt to claw back territory, with one senior commander claiming Kyiv’s advance was over, even as the evacuation of residents from border areas continued.
“The uncontrolled ride of the enemy has already been halted,” said Gen Apti Alaudinov, the commander of Akhmat, a Chechen special forces unit. “The enemy is already aware that the blitzkrieg that it planned did not work out.”
Ukrainian forces were still in control of numerous settlements, however, leaving the Kremlin attempting to play down the significance of the events.
On Tuesday, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s foreign ministry said Kyiv had no interest in the long-term occupation of the region. “Unlike Russia, Ukraine does not need other people’s property. Ukraine is not interested in taking the territory of the Kursk region, but we want to protect the lives of our people,” Heorhii Tykhyi told reporters in Kyiv. He said Russia had launched more than 2,000 strikes on Ukraine from the region over the last month.
Russia has been rushing reinforcements to the region, and Kyiv claimed on Tuesday that some units from the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson sectors of the frontline in southern Ukraine were being redeployed to the Kursk region. Dmytro Lykhoviy, a Ukrainian army spokesperson, made the claim to Politico, though clarified that it was a “relatively small” number of troops involved.
A report on Russian state television featured footage from the Kursk region of destroyed Ukrainian hardware. “There was a big battle here yesterday,” said Yuri Polskoi, head of the village of Giryi, dressed in full body armour. He showed charred remains of cars and houses in the village, deep inside Russia. The television report claimed Ukrainian forces had been hit and repulsed as soon as they approached the village.
Kyiv has not publicly stated the end goal of its surprise drive into Russia, which has been assessed variously as boosting morale after a long period on the back foot in the face of grinding Russian attacks, or as winning a potential bargaining chip to be used in negotiations.
A western intelligence official said Kyiv did not share specific details of the operation with allies until well after it was under way, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday, and there has been little criticism of Kyiv from friendly capitals. “Ukraine has every right to wage war in such a way as to paralyse Russia in its aggressive intentions as effectively as possible,” the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, said on Tuesday.
Ukraine has launched raids into Russian territory before, but they have been brief and appeared largely designed to have a psychological effect. This assault, with the sustained seizure of territory, is different. But Vladimir Putin, in his public comments, has been keen to play down the significance of what has been the biggest incursion of foreign troops into Russia since the second world war.
In a televised meeting with defence officials on Monday, the acting head of Kursk region, Alexei Smirnov, told the Russian president that 28 settlements in the region were under Ukrainian control and that Kyiv’s troops had penetrated up to 12km inside Russia along a 40km stretch of the border.
Putin interrupted the official, telling him to leave such matters to the military. “You can tell us about the socioeconomic situation and about helping people,” he said. Smirnov replied that 120,000 people had already been evacuated from their homes, with another 60,000 waiting for assistance. In neighbouring Belgorod region, a further 11,000 people had been evacuated, local officials said.
The Kremlin’s messaging has at times seemed confusing, simultaneously noting the seriousness of the border incursion while claiming there is nothing to worry about. “On the whole, the situation remains extremely difficult, but under control,” read an article in Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper on Monday, summing up the mood.
Russia has designated its response as an “counter-terrorism operation”, the same designation given to the war in Chechnya in the early 2000s, which allows the involvement of the FSB security services and Rosgvardia national guard, alongside the army. The initial response has appeared slow and poorly coordinated. Ukraine claims to have taken hundreds of Russian prisoners of war, and to have moved into some areas with little resistance.
“This war has left Russia’s borders weak, the army engaged in Ukraine and not immediately available to defend border regions, and FSB border troops not supported,” wrote Dara Massicot, a senior fellow at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, on X.
Russian opposition politicians watching from abroad expressed horror at the incursion but blamed it on Putin. “What’s happening in Kursk is terrible. From the first day of the war, I’ve said that Putin will bring death and destruction on to Russian territory, and that our country will be forced to pay a high price for his bloody adventurism, and that’s unfortunately what has happened,” said Ilya Yashin, an opposition politician released from jail earlier this month in a prisoner exchange.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, speaking on Monday evening, compared the disaster in Kursk to the 2000 sinking of the Kursk submarine in the first months of Putin’s rule over Russia. Then, more than 100 Russian sailors died, and Putin’s awkward and inadequate response was roundly criticised. “Twenty-four years ago there was the Kursk catastrophe, the symbolic beginning of his regime, and now it’s the end for him, and it’s Kursk again,” said Zelenskiy.
But with Ukrainian forces stretched thin along the long frontline, the assault on Russia is high risk for Ukraine and may put other areas of the front in danger. Ukraine’s general staff said on Tuesday that Russian forces had launched 52 assaults over the past 24 hours around the city of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region, double the daily average number of attacks a week ago.
