After advancing in Russia’s Kursk region Ukraine troops brace for retribution

As Ukrainian tanks and infantry poured over the Russian border last week in a shock turn of the war, one advancing serviceman reveled in a key Russian failing.

Unlike the troops that crashed into intricate Russian defensive lines that thwarted a large-scale offensive last year, the forces attacking the Kremlin’s frontier crossed quickly and easily.

“They didn’t protect the border. They only had anti-personnel mines scattered around trees at the side of the road and a few mines that they managed to quickly throw along the highways,” said the serviceman, who identified himself as Ruzhyk.

Kyiv says it has thrown thousands of troops at Russia’s Kursk region in the lightning operation that caught the Kremlin off guard and has seen Ukrainian forces capture more than two dozen Russian towns and villages.

Moscow has dispatched reinforcements to threatened frontier territories and evacuated tens of thousands of residents.

President Vladimir Putin has meanwhile vowed retribution and said the incursion was evidence that Russia is at war with the West.

The speed of Ukraine’s offensive — the largest by a foreign army inside Russia since World War II — contrasts starkly with grinding battles for individual cities that have defined Russia’s invasion now in its third year.

‘Russian complacency’

“We have another example when Russian complacency prevailed,” Ukrainian military analyst Mykola Bielieskov told AFP.

“Russia assumed that since it had initiative elsewhere, Ukraine wouldn’t dare to do things we’ve seen,” he said, referring to months of incremental Russian advances along the front.

While the offensive has injected Ukrainian troops with a much-needed morale boost, it has also raised questions about how Russia will respond. Both Moscow and Kyiv have been tight-lipped about the scope and character of the fighting in Kursk.

Slinging rucksacks and assault rifles over their shoulders before crossing back into Russia, one 27-year-old squad leader, who identified himself as Faraon, was sparing but direct in his description of battles in Kursk.

“I saw a lot of death in the first few days. It was terrifying at first but then we got used to it,” he told AFP.

“There have been many deaths,” he repeated next to a forest road leading to the frontier, without elaborating.

In a leafy clearing where Ukrainian tank crews were preparing to deploy to Kursk, a commander described the operation as a morale boost for an army suffering manpower and weapons shortages.

“There have been no significant victories in Ukraine in recent months. Only the Russians were advancing,” he explained.

He said the assault was de facto a win for Ukraine because it would force the Kremlin to reinforce other weak border regions with troops that could then not be deployed to Ukraine.

“If they keep some grouping of forces in Kursk that they can’t use (in Ukraine) then it’s already a success. Let’s see how it develops,” he added.

Glide bombs

Ruzhyk, 21, in a black T-shirt and camouflaged trousers, echoed the sentiment that the Ukrainian push had placed Moscow in a bind.

“If they start moving troops from the other side of the border then they won’t be able to hold the line there,” he said.

A senior Ukrainian official however earlier said that Russian attacks in the eastern Donetsk region — a long-sought prize for Putin — had not let up.

And the Institute for the Study of War, a US-based research group, noted that Russian forces have continued their gains unabated in the industrial territory over recent days.

Several soldiers, who spoke to AFP journalists near Ukrainian villages on the border with Kursk on the condition of anonymity, said Russia was dropping a huge number of devastating glide bombs to fend off the assault, testimony echoed by civilian evacuees over recent days.

Authorities there said Monday Russian forces were dropping between 40 and 50 glide bombs on the region alone every day.

No drones over Kursk

Some Ukrainian servicemen said Russia had been so caught off guard that the aerial bombardments were their only defensive option until more units could be deployed.
Asked by AFP whether Russia was flying drones — now omnipresent over the battlefield in Donetsk — in Kursk, one tank crew member hoisted himself down by the gun barrel before answering.

“It’s totally quiet,” the 30-year-old said moments before a barrage of Ukrainian-launched rockets traced lines in the sky above a field of blooming sunflowers.

What exactly Ukraine’s end game with the Kursk operation remains an open question.

The senior source in Kyiv said Ukraine was aiming to “destabilize” Russia, a theory Putin echoed on Monday. The Russian leader also said Ukraine could be trying to strengthen its hand in any future negotiations.

Whether Ukraine can hold the territory depends partly on whether Russia attempts to reclaim it or entrenches to halt further advances, said Bielieskov, the analyst.

“I see no reason that Ukraine can’t extract a high price from Russia if they try to reclaim these territories,” he said.

Putin has ordered his army to “dislodge” Ukrainian forces and Ruzhyk, the serviceman, said he was already expecting a harsh Russian retaliation.

“I wouldn’t say the fighting is particularly hard right now. But, yes, it will be soon.”