Two numbers for the same piece of Russian ground, and the gap between them is the story. General Oleksandr Syrskyi, Ukraine’s top commander, told President Zelenskyy by video link that his forces controlled about 1,000 square kilometres of Russia’s Kursk region. “We continue to conduct an offensive operation in the Kursk region,” he said. A few hours earlier, Alexei Smirnov, Russia’s acting governor of Kursk, had estimated that Ukrainian troops held 28 settlements, in an incursion about 12km deep and 40km wide.
The Guardian pointed out that Smirnov’s figure falls well short of Syrskyi’s claim. It also pointed out that neither account could be verified independently. Still, a Russian official putting a number on enemy gains at all was unusual, more than 29 months into the full-scale invasion.
Moscow’s reaction
The Ukrainian operation began on August 6, 2024, when the Armed Forces of Ukraine crossed into Kursk Oblast and fought the Russian army and border guards. Russia declared a state of emergency in the region and rushed reserves in.
Putin promised a “worthy response” and told his defense ministry its main task was “to dislodge the enemy from our territories.” He said Kyiv was trying to improve its position in any future talks and to stop Moscow’s push in the east. Smirnov told the same meeting that 121,000 people had fled the region, and that the fighting had killed at least 12 civilians and wounded 121.
Kursk authorities widened the evacuation area to Belovsky district, home to 14,000 residents. Neighbouring Belgorod announced it was moving people out of its border district of Krasnoyaruzhsky.
What Kyiv says it is after
The Ukrainian military listed damage to Russia’s forces, the capture of Russian troops and the pushing back of Russian artillery from the border zone as goals. Zelenskyy gave a security rationale in his nightly address: Russia had used Kursk to launch many strikes on Ukraine, and the northeastern Sumy region had been hit almost 2,100 times since 1 June. “Russia brought war to others, and now it is coming home,” he said.
Others see a different logic. Andriy Zagorodnyuk, a former Ukrainian defence minister, told Reuters the aim looked like creating a problem area to pull Russian attention and resources away from the places where Moscow was making progress. Whether that worked was unclear. Russia’s defence ministry said the same day that its troops had sped up in Donetsk and taken the hamlet of Lysychne on the road to Pokrovsk. A Ukrainian security official told AFP that Kyiv was not pulling troops from the Donetsk area and that Russian attacks there had eased slightly. He expected Russia to stop the Kursk incursion “in the end.”
Weapons and politics
Russian media widely reported that American Bradley and German Marder armoured vehicles were in the fight, a claim the Guardian said could not be independently confirmed. The question matters because some Western countries have been reluctant to let Ukraine fire their weapons onto Russian soil, fearing escalation that could draw Nato into the war. In Kyiv, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham urged the U.S. administration to supply what Ukraine needs. “What do I think about Kursk? Bold, brilliant, beautiful. Keep it up,” he told reporters.
Sources
- Ukrainian occupation of Kursk Oblast – Wikipedia
- Ukraine says it has seized 1,000 sq km in Kursk offensive as Putin vows ‘worthy response’
- Kursk campaign
