The Murky Meaning of Ukraine’s Kursk Offensive

A short-term success doesn’t necessarily have any long-term effects.

By Stephen M. Walt, a columnist at Foreign Policy and the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University.

August 28, 2024

https://archive.is/FGqGi

Is Ukraine’s surprise counteroffensive into Russia a critical turning point in the war, a meaningless sideshow, or a strategic misstep on Kyiv’s part? It has been mostly a success in the short term, but it’s the medium to long term that matters. Does it have broader implications for Western policy toward Russia in general and the war in Ukraine in particular?

The fortunes of war have shifted back and forth several times since Russia invaded in February 2022, and no outside observer has gotten everything right. For this reason, a certain amount of humility is in order. As with most wars, it is impossible to know exactly where each side’s breaking point might be, in terms of either capabilities or resolve, and it’s hard to predict how third parties will react to new developments. That said, I see little reason to think Ukraine’s incursion into the Kursk region will have a significant positive impact on its fortunes.

To be sure, the offensive has already brought Kyiv some obvious benefits. It has given Ukrainian morale a much-needed boost and helped counter concerns that Kyiv was trapped in a war of attrition against a larger adversary that it could neither defeat nor outlast. It put the war back on the front pages and strengthened voices calling for increased Western support. It exposed serious flaws in Russian intelligence and readiness and may have embarrassed Russian President Vladimir Putin, although there’s no sign that the incursion has reduced his resolve or slowed Russian advances in the Donbas.

It’s heartening to see Ukraine enjoy some battlefield successes, but this operation is unlikely to affect the outcome of the war. On the upside, the attack showed admirable initiative on Ukraine’s part and an impressive level of operational secrecy, which is why the invading force faced an inadequate number of poorly trained Russian defenders. In some ways the attack resembled the successful Ukrainian counteroffensive in Kharkiv in the fall of 2022, which also achieved tactical surprise and faced outnumbered and inexperienced Russian troops.

Unfortunately, these episodes tell us very little about Ukraine’s ability to gain ground against well-prepared and adequately manned Russian defenses of the sort that thwarted Ukraine’s offensive a year ago. Moreover, the Kursk operation may involve greater Ukrainian than Russian losses, which is not an exchange ratio it can sustain. It would be a huge mistake to conclude that the recent successes on the Kursk front mean that additional Western aid will enable Ukraine to retake the Donbas or Crimea.

This last point is critical, because the two states face quite different circumstances. Both sides have lost lots of troops and equipment, but Ukraine has lost far more territory. According to published reports, Ukraine has now seized about 400 square miles of Russian territory and forced roughly 200,000 Russians to evacuate these areas. These figures amount to 0.0064 percent of Russia’s total land area and 0.138 percent of its population. By contrast, Russia now controls roughly 20 percent of Ukraine, and the war has reportedly forced nearly 35 percent of Ukraine’s population to flee their homes. Even if Kyiv can hang on to the territory it has recently seized, it won’t provide much of a bargaining chip.

It follows that Ukraine’s fate will be determined primarily by what happens in Ukraine, and not by the Kursk operation. The key factors will be each side’s willingness and ability to keep sacrificing on the battlefield, the level of support Ukraine receives from others, and whether a deal can eventually be struck that leaves the unoccupied parts of Ukraine intact and secure. Toward that end, the United States and Europe should continue supporting Ukraine, but this support should be coupled to a serious and unsentimental effort to negotiate a cease-fire and eventual settlement. Unfortunately, U.S. officials seem to have forgotten how one gets even close allies to agree to a cease-fire, even when those states are dependent on U.S. backing and when a cease-fire is clearly in America’s interest.

The Kursk offensive raises at least two other issues, but it’s important to draw the right lessons from them. The first and most obvious lesson is a reminder of Russia’s limited reach and underwhelming military performance. Ever since 2022, hawks have been trying to convince us that Putin was hell-bent on restoring the Russian empire and maybe even the Warsaw Pact, and that Ukraine was just the first step before he launched new assaults on the existing order. Given Russia’s repeated missteps in this war, and given that even its successful advances have proceeded at a glacial pace, can anyone still believe that Russia poses a serious military threat to the rest of Europe? Threat inflators have been using this bogeyman to bolster support for Ukraine, but relying on scare tactics usually leads to bad strategic decisions.

Second, several commentators—including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky—have suggested that Kyiv’s successful incursion into Russia shows that existing red lines and other restrictions on Ukrainian operations should be discarded and that the West should let Ukraine take the fight to Russia however it wishes. If Ukrainian troops can invade Russian territory without triggering Russian escalation, so the argument goes, it proves that Putin is a paper tiger and that his earlier threats to escalate (including some not-so-veiled references to nuclear weapons) were bluffs that have now been called.

Such arguments are intended to get Ukraine more and better arms and to lift restrictions on their use, and I don’t blame Ukraine’s leaders for pushing this idea. But the claim that there is no risk of escalation no matter what Ukraine does should be firmly rejected. States are most likely to escalate when they are losing a war; indeed, Ukraine’s decision to invade Russian territory can be seen as a risky attempt to reverse a tide that was running against it. By contrast, Putin has no incentive to escalate if his forces are still winning in the Donbas. The danger that Russia will escalate kicks in only if Moscow is facing a catastrophic defeat, but that’s not where things stand today.

The issue is not just the continuing danger of escalation from an ongoing war. We should ask ourselves whether we are morally comfortable aiding a war effort whose stated objectives are probably unreachable, while eschewing a serious diplomatic effort to end the fighting. The likely result of our current policy is that more people will die for no obvious political purpose. Pushing for a negotiated solution to the Russia-Ukraine war is one of those instances in which self-interest and morality are aligned. The West and the Ukrainians walked away from opportunities to prevent or end this war by negotiation, and Ukraine’s recent military success should be seen as an opportunity to start serious cease-fire talks, not as an excuse to prolong a costly war that Ukraine can survive but is unlikely to win.