Rubber band red lines: Ukraine's incursion into Kursk exposes Russian vulnerabilities

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War has fully arrived in Russia

According to one of the reports from territories occupied by Ukrainian forces in the Kursk Region, locals confidently state that the war began on August 6, 2024. While there had been previous military activities extending beyond Ukraine's borders, these were different in nature. Earlier incursions involved pro-Ukrainian Russian groups like the Freedom of Russia Legion and Russian Volunteer Corps, acting in cooperation with Ukrainian forces. However, these prior actions were primarily seen as limited raids, focused more on creating propagandistic impact than on establishing a sustained Ukrainian presence on Russian territory. They were characterized by their short duration and limited use of resources.

The situation in the Kursk Region, however, involves the action of a large military group (estimated at up to 10,000 troops). Heavy armor, artillery, and aircraft are actively used in combat there. According to the latest Ukrainian reports, the AFU controls 100 settlements covering an area of 1,294 km² (~500 sq. miles). It is unclear how many Russian civilians remain in this territory, but they likely number in the thousands. To maintain order and serve the needs of the population, the Ukrainian military has established a commandant's office in the occupied areas.

Ukrainian soldiers entering Sudzha in the Kursk Region, August 2024 / Warriors of Ukraine

On one hand, this visible military failure by the Kremlin, which proved unable to defend its own territory against external aggression, erodes whatever confidence existed in its current strategy of exhausting Ukraine and its Western allies through a “war of attrition.” On the other hand, following the AFU invasion of the Kursk Region, Russian Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov, who also commands the so-called “SMO”, outlined a clear and tangible objective for Russia’s war: to reach its own state border.

Foreign invasions can simply be ignored

Throughout the Ukrainian advance in the Kursk Region, Vladimir Putin personally signaled that such large-scale events could simply be ignored.

For the first time since World War II, foreign forces have occupied a significant portion of Russian territory. Since the Second Chechen War, such a large number of Russian citizens have not had to flee their homes due to military action, and an evacuation on this scale likely hasn't occurred since 1941. The AFU has taken control of the Sudzha gas metering station — a key infrastructural facility linked to the last functioning overland gas transit route between Russia and Europe.

Ukrainian soldiers on the outskirts of Sudzha in the Kursk Region, August 2024 / Status-6

What was Vladimir Putin doing during this invasion? He visited Baku, Azerbaijan, inspected pear orchards in Kabardino-Balkaria, stopped by Beslan two weeks before the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attack there, observed Ramzan Kadyrov's son Adam shooting in Chechnya, held a “Conversation on Important Matters” lesson in a Tuva school, and visited Mongolia. To this day, the president has not found time to visit Kursk.

Meanwhile, research by the OpenMinds project shows that after August 6, 2024, the main topic of discussion on the Russian internet was the invasion of the Kursk Region. The FilterLabs AI project, which analyzes social media comments, recorded a sharp rise in negative assessments of Putin's performance. Even generally loyalist polling agencies like FOM, the Levada Center, and VTsIOM reported increased anxiety among Russians and a drop in trust for the Russian president.

Despite this, Putin consistently referred to the events around Kursk not as a crisis, but as a “provocation” (August 7), “circumstances” (August 8), a “counter-terrorist situation” (August 12), and simply a “situation” (August 22). During a public lesson on September 2 in a school in Kyzyl, Putin told students about “bandits who entered the Kursk Region.” Notably, the Kremlin did not use the invasion of Russian territory for patriotic mobilization, instead downplaying its significance in the information space.

Conscripts instead of special forces and strategic reserves

As it turned out, Russia’s border defense grouping in the Kursk Region — made up of conscripts, border guards, and Rosgvardiya troops — was incapable of holding off attacks from Ukrainian regular army units. But this Russian vulnerability was known in advance, even by Vladimir Putin, who in March 2024 ordered conscripts along the border to be replaced with special forces soldiers.

It also became clear that the Russian command lacks any significant reserves to deal with such events — not only strategic reserves, but also operational. While some Russian regular units and unusual formations are being transferred to the Kursk Region from secondary sectors of the front in Ukraine, Bloomberg reports that no major forces from Donbas are planned to be redeployed. As a result, public opinion in Russia is being prepared for the mass involvement of young conscripts serving their mandatory one-year term to take part in combat operations on Russian territory. Sending conscripts to deal with the Ukrainian incursion into Russian territory serves as an alternative to a second wave of mobilization.

Columns of Russian armed forces being redeployed to the Kursk Region, August 9, 2024 / Zvezda TV channel

In other words, the continued presence of the AFU in the Kursk Region indicates that the Russian command lacks free reserve units not only to respond to unexpected crises, but perhaps also to support ongoing offensive operations in Ukraine. The Kremlin's limited resources put it in an unfavorable position regarding military-diplomatic negotiations. Long-term Western support for Ukraine is no longer seen as a doomed endeavor — contrary to what some American and European politicians believed just over a month ago.

Not all battles are stalemated

After Ukraine's failed counteroffensive in the summer of 2023 and the shift to a full-scale positional war across much of the front, there was a general belief (shared by The Insider) that large-scale maneuver warfare was no longer possible in Ukraine. However, the AFU's invasion of the Kursk Region proves that secret force buildup, operational surprise, and rapid breakthroughs are achievable — that not everywhere on the battlefield is deadlocked or entirely transparent.

The first days of the AFU’s operation in the Kursk Region, August 2024 / DeepState

At the same time, the AFU's operation in the Kursk Region highlights the limits of Kyiv’s resources, which do not appear to be sufficient for a full-scale offensive against a prepared Russian defense. The limited area of operations reflects the Ukrainian group's critical dependence on army logistics.

Elusive and all-powerful Kadyrovites

According to some reports, Kadyrov's forces stationed in the Kursk Region “dispersed” — meaning they fled — after the first AFU strikes in early August. Other reports suggest that Chechen soldiers “ran away immediately,” leaving conscripts to cover the border. Ukrainian channels have posted videos mocking Chechen «TikTok troops» (1, 2) with sarcastic comments about the Chechen “Akhmat” units' failed defense of the region.

“Akhmat” Special forces commander Apti Alaudinov initially claimed that the Chechen units protecting the border in the Kursk Region failed to repel the AFU attack because they “narrowly missed” the Ukrainian troops. According to him, the Ukrainians bypassed Chechen strongholds without engaging. Later, Alaudinov stated that conscripts and their parents, unwilling to defend the Motherland, should ask themselves why they are needed in the country. A month before the AFU offensive, Russian military correspondent Vladimir Romanov had to apologize to the Akhmat fighters for his earlier comment that conscripts were stationed on the border while Chechen troops were positioned behind them.

From the first day of the invasion of the Kursk Region, Alaudinov has acted as one of the primary public representatives of the Russian military, almost daily reporting on the “successes” in the fight against the enemy. His following statements particularly stand out:

• August 6: “We’re grabbing popcorn and calmly watching as our forces destroy the enemy.”
• August 8: “The situation is not critical.”
• August 10: “We are fully controlling the situation.”
• August 11: “The situation is gradually stabilizing.”
• August 13: “The situation is under control.”
• August 14: “We have finished blocking the enemy.”
• August 18: “The enemy has been stopped.”
• August 21: “We have stopped them and started pushing them back.”

Throughout this time, the Ukrainian Armed Forces were capturing ever more settlements on Russian territory.

Ukraine is not a puppet of the West

A favorite theme of Russian propaganda is the “Kyiv regime’s” supposed lack of independence. President Volodymyr Zelensky is portrayed as a puppet of Washington and Brussels, while Ukraine's political elite is seen as obedient to the “collective West.” The AFU command, for its part, is characterized as being subordinate to NATO and the U.S. military.

However, the Kursk operation revealed that the U.S. was unaware of the planned invasion. Ukrainian general Oleksandr Syrskyi had to conceal his intentions and prepare the operation under strict secrecy in order to prevent Western allies from — at least potentially — undermining it.

The West no longer fears escalation

The invasion of Russian territory marks the sharpest escalation in the Russian-Ukrainian war. given the Kremlin's restrained response, The Washington Post reports that the U.S. is now seriously considering greenlighting Ukraine’s use of long-range Western weapons against military targets in Russia. And in any case, the fact of foreign-supplied armored vehicles and tanks moving through the Kursk Region have not resulted in any significant adverse consequences. While some commentators have attempted to paint Russian missile strikes on Ukraine as a reaction to the invasion, these attacks are in fact part of an ongoing Russian campaign aimed against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. Military experts Michael Kofman and Rob Lee, writing for Foreign Affairs, also note that the notion of Russia’s “red lines” has been further challenged.

The first days of the AFU operation in the Kursk Region, August 2024 / Air Assault Forces of the AFU

The Ukrainian invasion also calls into question the conventional wisdom surrounding Russia’s nuclear deterrent. In this case, a non-nuclear state has carried out armed aggression against a nuclear one, seized its territory, and has not faced nuclear retaliation. Reflecting on the Falklands War in 1982, when the United Kingdom opted to retake the disputed islands from Argentine forces by using conventional weapons, the likelihood of Russia using nuclear weapons in response to a Ukrainian invasion appears even lower.

Peace isn’t worth any price

Many experts and politicians who promoted the idea of peace along the current contact line in Ukraine’s south and east are not prepared to leave Ukrainian-occupied Russian territories under Kyiv’s control. Zelensky told NBC that he plans to hold onto Russian territories until Putin agrees to negotiate.

Initially, Putin claimed that the invasion made peace talks impossible:

“It seems the enemy is trying to improve their negotiating position for the future. But what kind of negotiations can there be with people who indiscriminately strike at civilians, civilian infrastructure, or attempt to create threats to nuclear energy facilities? What can even be discussed with them?”

Acting Russian Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Dmitry Polyansky even characterized the events in the Kursk Region as a negative response from Kyiv to a “generous offer” for peace talks. For context, Putin's “generous offer,” made in mid-June of this year, demanded the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from Ukraine’s internationally recognized Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, and Luhansk regions; it also required Ukraine to renounce any ambitions towards NATO membership while simultaneously calling for the removal of all sanctions imposed on Russia.

However, Putin later all but acknowledged that he views the “failure of the provocation” in the Kursk Region as a precondition for a peace process. Entering negotiations, considering the current successes of the AFU in the Kursk direction, is one of the most straightforward ways Kyiv can turn tactical military success into a political outcome.

Rescuing civilians is up to the civilians

During the initial days of the Ukrainian Armed Forces operation in the Kursk Region, local Russian authorities and security forces were quick to deny that the border had even been breached. The Russian Ministry of Defense reported on the “defeat” of a Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance group, which allegedly retreated back into Ukraine. Russian officials later repeatedly stated (1, 2) that the enemy’s “advance had been stopped.” Residents of border areas reported seeing no organized evacuation and said that they had to leave on their own, at their own risk.

The situation on the outskirts of Sudzha and in Kursk, August 8, 2024 / Kommersant

Ultimately, a total of 130,000 people left the border areas of the Kursk Region. However, the authorities not only failed to organize an evacuation, but also shifted much of the responsibility for assisting refugees to volunteers and charitable NGOs. Volunteers are also largely responsible for providing medical aid to civilians and soldiers injured in the fighting. Furthermore, Russian citizens are being encouraged to directly assist the victims through the donation of gift certificates for the online shopping sites Ozon and Avito.

“Territorial uncertainty” doesn’t prevent elections

After the Ukrainian Armed Forces' invasion of the Kursk Region and Russia’s loss of control over approximately 1,300 square kilometers of the area, the Russian bureaucratic machine coined an unexpected neologism to describe the situation — “territorial uncertainty.” Just as “pop” replaces “explosion,” “smoke” is used instead of “fire,” and “negative growth” is reported instead of “decline,” the convoluted phrase allows Russian authorities to avoid the use of more direct terms — like “Ukrainian occupation.”

Despite this ongoing “territorial uncertainty,” the Kursk Region did not cancel its recent gubernatorial elections. However, voting at the municipal level was postponed in several districts.