Vladimir Putin, it seems, is procrastinating. Just when the war in Ukraine was going his way and the Russian army doing what it does best – pummelling its way forward like a leaden-footed but seemingly unstoppable heavyweight boxer – Kyiv has sneaked in a powerful side punch. By launching an incursion into the Kursk region, Ukraine has not only breached the borders of Mother Russia – the inner sanctum of what is still a regional empire of control and influence – but also opened a second front.
For days Ukrainians braced for a spiteful rejoinder. Perhaps Putin would lash out with withering rocket attacks, a devastating bombing raid against a major city, or even (Heaven forbid) a small nuclear strike against Kyiv’s forces.
For now, Putin has resisted the temptation to lash out
But so far the Russian president has done remarkably little. On Tuesday he toured a factory in the Russian regions that makes sugar-free apple-flavoured sweets.
The Ukrainian move into Kursk has doubtless created problems for Putin. First off he must ensure that the blame for the egregious failure to predict the offensive doesn’t land at his feet. In the eyes of many Russians, Putin is still the Tsar and, while he can suggest that corruption and inefficiency are the fault of his self-serving and corrupt boyars, it is nevertheless his job to keep Russians safe – especially from foreign invasion.
Just as it was Stalin’s task to push back the Nazi menace, whatever the cost in lives and destruction, Putin will be expected to retake Kursk and reestablish the sanctity of Russia’s frontiers. But given how stretched the Russian military is – almost all its significant resources are now deployed in eastern Ukraine – that will take time.
Putin could, of course, redeploy his existing forces. But Kyiv has widely telegraphed the fact that getting Russia to pull forces out of eastern Ukraine, where they have been advancing steadily for months, is one of the primary aims of the Kursk attack. Doing so now would be an admission that the Kremlin has been outmanoeuvred.
Such a move might also mean an end to advances in eastern Ukraine this year. With the important Ukrainian transport hub of Pokrovsk looking set to fall in the next several weeks and the Russians making slow if bloody progress towards the key towns of Chasiv Yar and Kostyantynivka, that would be a bitter pill to swallow for the Kremlin.
Putin has decided, so far at least, not to make that move. Open source intelligence reports say that while some experienced Russian units from southern Ukraine have been sent north, other troops sent to the Kursk salient have been from the Kaliningrad enclave in the west and even from Moscow’s aerospace forces.
Young Russian conscripts doing their military service have also been sent into staunch Ukraine’s advance, though that too presents a challenge for Putin. Russian law actually forbids sending conscripts to fight abroad. And while the Kursk region is undoubtedly part of Russia, and therefore not subject to the prohibition, there is still a sense that fighting there is overspill from Russia’s expeditionary invasion of Ukraine.
For now, then, Putin has both resisted the temptation to lash out and to compromise on his main effort in the Donbas. Perhaps wisely. Firstly, he will have calculated that the risks and difficulties are not only on his side. Ukraine, short of manpower and materiel, is even more ill-equipped to fight on two fronts than Russia. The withdrawal of some of its most battle-hardened troops from the east is already taking a toll and Ukrainian villages in the Donbas have been falling like dominos these past two weeks.
Secondly, an escalatory move might change the rules of the game at a time when, in the big picture, Putin is winning the war. It could, for example, draw the West further into the conflict.
But is it wisdom alone that is staying Putin’s hand? We know from his long years in power that Putin, despite his bare-chested strongman image, is prone to procrastination. In 2004, he hesitated for months – to the bewilderment of the hawks in his entourage – before finally moving against Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Russia’s richest man who had openly challenged the Kremlin’s authority. In 2014, long after the pieces were in place to seize Crimea, he sat on his hands. Even after Yevgeny Prigozhin’s coup attempt in 2023 he, at first, seemed ready to accommodate the Wagner leader and some of his grievances.
But the record of the former KGB agent tells us something else too. At some point, when he considers the moment right, he will strike. Khodorkovsky went to prison. Crimea became Russia. Prigozhin is dead.
For now Putin is procrastinating. Before he makes a move he will want to ensure that his position at home is secure. But, meanwhile, he will be stewing over how best to exact revenge on Ukraine. Even if that revenge, when it comes, is served cold.
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