Kyiv’s offensive into the Kursk region was a typically bold move by the Ukrainians and one which caught Russia entirely by surprise. But perhaps its most surprising feature is Vladimir Putin’s response.
Given the Russian president’s repeated claims that losing its war against Ukraine would mean the break up of Russia by the west, it might have been expected that Putin would respond with outrage to the first invasion of Russia’s territory since the second world war.
Considering the Russian president’s efforts to establish parallels between the Soviet Union’s fight against Nazi Germany and Russia’s war against Ukraine, he also missed an obvious opportunity to label Ukraine’s August 6 surprise offensive as the modern day equivalent to Operation Barbarossa. This was when Nazi forces stormed across the western borders of the Soviet Union in June 1941 in a devastating attack.
