After months spent occupying a swathe of territory in Russia in the wake of a daring summer assault, Volodymyr Zelensky has claimed that Ukraine is now engaged against a force of 50,000 troops amassed by Vladimir Putin in the border Kursk region.
The Ukrainian incursion was the largest on Russian soil since the Second World War and succeeded in taking Moscow – and even Kyiv’s closest allies – by surprise.
But despite Ukrainian troops’ success in bedding into positions deep into Kursk, the offensive received a mixed reaction from analysts, with some questioning the wisdom of drawing vital defensive power away from the fight in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, where Mr Putin’s forces have been making steady, grinding gains for months.
With top Ukrainian officials revealing to The Independent in August that they viewed the Kursk offensive as a vital “psychological” tool to force Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table, Kyiv’s forces have succeeded in holding out in Kursk far longer than some analysts initially expected.
However, Moscow is now pushing to retake the territory. Following reports that thousands of North Korean troops have been stationed in Kursk, Ukraine’s military has claimed that Russia has suffered two consecutive days of record losses – suggesting the fight is gaining a new intensity.
Andrew Perpetua, who tracks Russian losses on the front line, told The Independent that he has already seen missing-in-action reports for the Kursk attack this week being published by families. Usually, he said, this would take two to three weeks.
While the reasons for this sudden speed are not certain, he suggested, “it could be that so many died that the chances of finding this low probability event went up”.
For historian Mark Galeotti, author of Forged in War: A Military History of Russia, reports of increased Russian losses reflect not just an escalation in fighting, but illustrate the degree to which Moscow is willing to take casualties – “precisely because”, he says, “they are working to a timeline”.
The apparent push in Kursk also comes as the re-election of Donald Trump as US president raises questions over Washington’s future approach to support for Ukraine and potential concessions to Moscow, with Mr Trump having previously claimed that he could end Russia’s war in a single day.
“The great advantage that the Ukrainians have had in Kursk is precisely that the focus up to now has been on the Donbas [the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk]. That’s where the veteran troops have been and so forth,” said Dr Galeotti.
“Now it is clear particularly with prospect of a potential ceasefire freezing the frontlines under Trump, Putin is determined that, by the time Trump is inaugurated, the Kursk salient has to have been wiped out. So I think this is what we’re seeing now.”
But Dr Galeotti added: “They can’t carry on that rate [of casualties] forever. But given they are thinking what can we achieve in the rest of the year, they’re willing to take losses to see how far they can push the lines.”
However, Emil Kastehelmi, an open-source analyst tracking the war for the Finland-based Black Bird Group, said that, even if Mr Trump had lost the US election, “Russia would probably still try to attack in Kursk as well”, with plans for a Kursk counteroffensive most likely being drawn up long before the vote.
“The territory controlled by Ukraine, even at its largest, consisted of the countryside of the border area with a few dozen villages and one small town of 6,000 inhabitants,” said Mr Kastehelmi. “The Ukrainian land operations wasn’t in a position to seriously threaten any significant logistical routes, military installations, cities or other infrastructure.”
