Kursk Region Incursion Allowed Ukraine to Seize Initiative in One Section of Ukrainian Frontline

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) noted that the reported Ukrainian offensive in Russia's Kursk region has allowed the Ukrainian forces to seize the initiative in one section of the front at least temporarily and continue the confrontation throughout the entire area of combat actions.

“Ukraine's operation in Kursk Oblast has allowed Ukrainian forces to at least temporarily seize the battlefield initiative in one area of the frontline and contest Russia's theater-wide initiative,“ the report says.

The Institute reported that Russia's control of the theater-wide initiative has enabled it to dictate the location, timing, scale, and conditions of combat in Ukraine, compelling Ukraine to allocate resources and personnel primarily for reactive defensive operations.

“The Ukrainian operation in Kursk Oblast, however, has forced the Kremlin and Russian military command to react and redeploy forces and means to the sector where Ukrainian forces have launched attacks,” the report continues.

The report stressed that Russian forces, however, were not actively operating in the Kursk region. Instead, Russia has used its control of the theater-wide initiative to exert pressure on Ukraine, aiming to hinder Ukrainian forces from amassing personnel and resources for future counteroffensive operations. This strategy is designed to maintain a pace of fighting that enables Russian forces to sustain continuous offensive operations.

ISW reports that Vladimir Putin and the Russian military command likely misjudged Ukraine's capacity to challenge their initiative. Ukraine's ability to achieve operational surprise and contest the theater-wide initiative is now challenging the operational and strategic assumptions that currently support Russian offensive efforts in Ukraine.

“The Ukrainian operation in Kursk Oblast and further possible Ukrainian cross-border incursions force a decision point on the Kremlin and the Russian military command about whether to view the thousand-kilometer-long international border with northeastern Ukraine as a legitimate frontline that Russia must defend instead of a dormant area of the theater as they have treated it since Fall 2022,” the experts of the ISW added.

Moscow’s response might compel the Russian military command to factor in the manpower and materiel needs for defending the international border within its theater-wide campaign strategy, potentially introducing long-term operational planning constraints that Russia had not previously faced.

They also noted that Russia's strategy of treating the international border as a "dormant front" has allowed it greater flexibility in amassing and deploying both personnel and resources for its operations in Ukraine.

Although Russia has spent considerable resources to build fortifications along the international border area, it has not allocated the manpower and materiel to significantly man and defend those fortifications.