When video footage of the Ukrainian incursion into Russia’s Kursk region began appearing on social media, a joke started doing the rounds with Vladimir Putin asking Stalin what he should do about the German tanks rolling towards Kursk. Stalin’s ghost responds that the recipe for victory is simple: send the best Ukrainian divisions into battle, like he did in 1943, and then ask the Americans for tanks and money. But neither of these options is available to Putin. He is now facing the Ukrainian army on his own soil, and regards the US as his primary enemy.
Every year since the Russian invasion, Ukraine has surprised the world. First, at the very start of the war in 2022, its forces repelled a Russian assault on the capital, Kyiv. Then, in 2023, they liberated Kherson. Now, their tanks are rolling in to Russian territory. Ukrainian armed forces have been advancing for the past 10 days. They already control about 1,000 sq km of land and more than 80 settlements. Russian flags have been taken down; in the city of Sudzha, a military administration has been set up to govern the territory, and hundreds of prisoners of war have been captured.
