It’s four days into Ukraine’s surprise offensive in the Russian region of Kursk and Moscow is only just sending reinforcements to repel the advance. Multiple launch rocket systems, artillery guns and armoured vehicles – which were probably redeployed from other parts of the front line – have been sent to shore up defences, according to the Russian ministry of defence.
The delayed response has reportedly allowed Ukrainian forces to advance as far as 10 kilometres inside Russia’s territory, forcing Moscow to declare a ‘federal emergency’ in the region and tell several thousand of civilians from districts around the town of Sudzha to relocate. It’s the deepest cross-border advance by Kyiv since Russia launched its invasion in February 2022.
Russia’s army chiefs will have to face Putin’s wrath for allowing it to happen in the first place
A source close to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky yesterday said that the Ukrainian army had captured a gas line in the region crucial for transporting oil to Europe. There are reports today that suggest Ukraine has also managed to hit a military airfield in Lipetsk (which is deep within Russia and more than 200 miles from Sudzha) using drones to destroy guided bombs stored at the airfield.
The Russian army’s lumbering delay will be deeply embarrassing for military officials, not least due to the fact they were so unprepared for such an attack by Ukraine that the part of the border they breached on Tuesday was guarded only by ill-equipped conscripts. After three days of downplaying the severity of the incursion, and several claims made in the Russian state media that Ukraine’s advance had been halted, the Russian ministry of defence admitted for the first time today that fighting had indeed spread as far as Suzhda.
Jitters in the army’s top ranks are likely to be made worse by the fact that a quiet purge of the military’s top ranks has been slowly carried out over the past several months: many of those close to the former defence minister Sergei Shoigu have been demoted, forcibly retired or indeed arrested on dubious criminal charges. Shoigu himself was unceremoniously removed from his post and replaced by the more hardline Andrei Belousov in May who was widely expected to improve the armed forces’ efficiency. He will now have questions to answer.
After a relatively successful year in the war so far for Putin’s forces, the handling of Ukraine’s attack could quickly risk becoming a PR disaster for the Kremlin. Locals forced to evacuate from the area of the fighting and leave property, jobs and belongings behind have reportedly been compensated with the equivalent of just £100 for the trouble with no idea how long they might be gone for.
One group of Suzhda residents has already recorded an appeal to Putin for help, lamenting: ‘Our relatives, husbands, neighbours are defending Donbass. We have lost our land, we have lost our homes, we have fled under fire, many without documents. We want to ask for help, we have been left alone.’ In what appears to be a classic example of the dangerous incompetence Putin’s regime of fear has fostered since the beginning of the war, one local authority leader had yesterday posted on his Telegram channel urging locals to voluntarily evacuate – before deleting his message half an hour later, likely out of fear it could be interpreted as ‘discrediting’ the Russian army.
How long Ukraine manages to maintain its advance into Russian territory remains to be seen: the further in they move, the more logistically challenging it will become for their army to keep hold of their gains. But it is already certain that, regardless of whether they manage to repel Kyiv’s forces from Russian territory, Russia’s army chiefs will have to face Putin’s wrath for allowing it to happen in the first place.
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