Master Stroke or Misadventure: Ukraine’s Aims in Kursk Remain Unclear

Kyiv’s ongoing offensive in Russia’s Kursk region, now in its fourth week, has been hailed in the West as a potential game changer by bringing the war to Russia’s doorstep.
But while Ukrainian forces have managed to establish control over a thin strip of Russian territory, the operation’s strategic objectives remain ambiguous.
According to Andrew Corbett, a lecturer at the Defense Studies Department at King’s College London, the offensive’s main aim was to force Moscow to pull troops and equipment from the eastern front.
“Tactically, the size and speed of the operation suggest it is designed to present dilemmas to the Russian commanders,” Corbett told The Epoch Times.
“Do they reinforce forces in Kursk or focus on offensive operations further south?”
More than three weeks into the offensive, few observers dispute that Kyiv’s offensive has caused a headache for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Despite fierce Russian counterattacks, Ukrainian forces have established control over more than 450 square miles of territory—according to Kyiv—and scores of border settlements.
Meanwhile, tens of thousands of civilians have been evacuated from Kursk and from the neighboring Briansk and Belgorod regions due to continued Ukrainian attacks.
“The strategic impact is likely to be negative for the Putin regime,” Corbett said, “given that Russia has been invaded and the response has been anything but decisive.”
Although Moscow disputes the extent of Kyiv’s territorial gains, Russian forces appear to have been unable—so far—to eject the invaders from Kursk.
“Ukrainian troops [in Kursk] are actively digging in and building defensive lines,” Apty Alaudinov, a top Russian Defense Ministry official, told Russia’s TASS news agency on Aug. 29.
According to Abdullah Agar, a Turkish military expert and former Special Forces officer, Kyiv’s offensive has sought to undermine Putin by making him appear unable to defend Russian territory.
“If Putin is perceived as being unable to protect Russia’s borders … this will create serious problems for him,” Agar told The Epoch Times.
“That’s why Russia’s coming response [to the offensive] will be critical,” he said.
Approximately 18,500 square miles in size, Kursk shares a roughly 150-mile-long border with northeastern Ukraine.
On the offensive’s second day, Kyiv claimed its forces had wrested control of Sudzha, a key energy hub located six miles east of the border.
Yet despite these initial gains, the operation’s objectives have remained vague from the outset—even among Western officials.
“I will leave it to them [the Ukrainians] to speak to … what their goals are,” a State Department spokesman said on Aug. 7—a day after Kyiv launched the offensive.
On the same day, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that Washington sought clarification from Kyiv “to learn more about their objectives” in Kursk.
On Aug. 8, Myhailo Podolyak, a top Ukrainian presidential adviser, provided some insight, saying the offensive was meant to strengthen Kyiv’s position in advance of possible ceasefire talks.
“When will it be possible to conduct a negotiation process in the way that we can … get something from them [the Russians]?” Podolyak said in remarks to the press. “Only when the war is not going according to their scenarios.”
Based on subsequent statements from Moscow, however, this strategy may have backfired, with Russian officials ruling out talks—at least in the short term.
“After the reckless move in the Kursk region, any discussion of this subject [ceasefire talks] is no longer relevant,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Aug. 29.
Kyiv has also suggested that the operation’s objective was to establish a “buffer zone” in Kursk, with a view to preventing Russian cross-border attacks on Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy and Kharkiv regions.
“The creation of a buffer zone … is designed to protect our border communities from daily enemy attacks,” Ihor Klymenko, Ukraine’s interior minister, said on Aug. 14.
Asked about Kyiv’s plan to set up a buffer zone, Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh had little information to share.
“That’s something that we continue to work with them [the Ukrainians] on, on exactly what are their strategic objectives on creating that buffer zone and how—if they plan to expand,” Singh told reporters on Aug. 22.
“These are questions that we’re continuing to ask,” she said.
Moscow, meanwhile, has also suggested that a key aim of Kyiv’s offensive was to capture—or disable—Kursk’s Soviet-era nuclear power plant, which provides electricity to several regions of Russia.
Last week, Putin accused Ukrainian forces in Kursk of attempting to strike the nuclear plant in a nighttime drone attack.
Kyiv, for its part, has yet to respond to the Russian claims.
But on Aug. 27, Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, visited Kursk to assess the situation.
During his visit, Grossi acknowledged a serious risk of potential nuclear disaster.
“The danger or possibility of a nuclear accident has emerged near here,” he told reporters in Kursk.
Although Grossi inspected the damage caused by the alleged Ukrainian drone attack, he declined to apportion blame to either side of the conflict.
Some voices in the Western media have suggested that the offensive was a strategic mistake, since it served to divert Ukraine’s limited resources away from the primary theater in Donbas.
“Ukraine’s invasion [of Kursk] was a major strategic blunder, which will accelerate its defeat,” John Mearsheimer, a prominent American geopolitical analyst, wrote in Responsible Statecraft on Aug. 15.
“Kyiv removed top-notch combat units from the front lines in eastern Ukraine—where they are desperately needed—and made them part of the Kursk strike force,” Mearsheimer said.
According to Sergei Markov, a former Putin spokesman and former member of Russia’s State Duma (parliament), Kyiv has moved roughly 20,000 troops from Donbas to Kursk—and to Ukraine’s Sumy region—since the offensive began.
“There is a consensus among military experts that [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy sent troops to Kursk with unrealistic goals,” Markov told The Epoch Times.
“This is one of the reasons for the current failure of the Ukrainian army in Donbas.”
Markov went on to assert that Russian troops, too, had been transferred to Kursk from the eastern front.
“But not as many as Zelenskyy expected,” he said.
Asked how—and when—he believed the offensive would end, Markov said Kursk would likely remain the scene of “heavy fighting” in coming months, “but there will be no big territorial changes.”
“A few villages will remain under Ukrainian control,” he said, “but before any peace deal [can be reached], Ukrainian forces will be pushed out of Kursk by the coming Russian counter-offensive.”
Corbett expressed a similar view.
“I would not be at all surprised if we see Ukrainian forces withdraw if a large Russian counterattack is in the offing,” he said.
“But a similar swift thrust [by Ukrainian forces] might be expected shortly afterward elsewhere, compounding Russian commanders’ problems.”