‘There are enormous risks with Ukraine’s Kursk incursion’, says RUSI

We were joined by the Director of Military Sciences at the Royal United Services Institute, Matthew Savill.

Matt Frei: The Kremlin said rather sniffly that they didn’t see any military point in this operation. Are they right?

Matthew Savill: We don’t really know at this time what the full scope and objectives of this are. It certainly, in terms of scale, is the largest conventional incursion into Russia by Ukrainian forces since this phase of the war started. But there’s a whole host of things that it could achieve, both in terms of propaganda, there are tactical benefits to it, but there are enormous risks for the Ukrainians as well. Given the extent to which it’s probably stretching their lines and pulling in reserves that they would, under normal circumstances, rather be using elsewhere.

Matt Frei: When I spoke to President Zelenskyy in Kiev at the beginning of the year, he said in English very pointedly, ‘No one likes a loser.’ Do you think this has to do with the run-up to the American elections and questions over the future of Ukrainian funding, and they want to make a point that they can achieve such a victory?

Matthew Savill: It might be the case that they are trying to show that they are fundamentally still in this fight, and more to the point that they’re capable of going on the offensive. The narrative of the past six months or so has largely been one where they’re on the defensive and losing ground, slowly, but losing ground to the Russians. And so if you were looking to bolster international support and show that there is still value in basically investing in supporting the Ukrainian military, including into next year, which will be critical, then this would be one way of doing it. Although, as I said, there are some serious challenges here and in some respects we might need to look back at this in weeks or even a couple of months to see what the long term effects were.

Matt Frei: So far, Ukraine has been the defined victim in this war. Is there a risk here, especially in international capitals amongst friends, that if you get too aggressive inside Russia, it might be a backlash against them?

Matthew Savill: I think they’ve already tried to draw out a contrast between how their forces operate on the ground and the Russian forces, who obviously have committed what, for all the world looked like, enormous war crimes when they’ve occupied and then been expelled from parts of Ukraine. There is a question here over that classic issue of is this escalation or not? But I think in many respects, the Ukrainians would simply argue that this is the front line straddling and now being pushed back over an international border. In many respects, it mirrors what the Russians did when they tried to come in a few months back around Kharkiv.

Matt Frei: Do you think the Ukrainians can hold this territory for much longer that they’ve captured in Kursk?

Matthew Savill: I think that that is much more open to debate because extending their lines when they’re already outnumbered all the way along the front line is risky. They’re putting themselves within reach, probably, of more Russian helicopters, attack aircraft, those glide bombs which were used to significant effect all the way along the front line. So unless they’ve brought a lot of air defences with them, or they found some way of jamming and interfering with Russian surveillance drones, then there is considerable risk. And that’s what we mean when we say we don’t yet know the scope of this operation. Do they intend to try and hold this territory for a short period and effectively trade it back for something else? Or are they genuinely trying to extend the front lines and hold it for much longer, looking forward to potential peace talks down the line?

Matt Frei: On that point, do you think this might be preparing the ground, putting a few more chips on their side, for some eventual negotiation about a final settlement?

Matthew Savill: Something like this, which is taking territory, probably embarrassing the Russians quite considerably, causing them to have to evacuate tens of thousands of Russians, could play into it. But then the question would be, how long are they intending to hold it, and when do they therefore think those talks might start? So there are enormous risks about trying to consolidate and hold with some of their better units, mechanised, fast-moving units that they have pushed in to try and basically carve out this chunk. Of course, what we don’t know is how much they genuinely control of it. There’s lots of this that we’re basically viewing through a very partial and open source lens.