A headline, like a picture, can be worth a thousand words. The Telegraph gives us one today: “Ukraine seizes more land in a week than Russia managed in eight months.”
That line is reminiscent of the sage Hillel responding to a demand to tell the whole Torah while standing on one foot and saying: “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor.” The Telegraph headline on Ukraine’s incursion into Russia is the on-one-foot version of this war.
“By Monday evening,” the paper reports, “Ukrainian forces were in control of around 1,000 sq km (386 sq miles) of Kursk, according to Oleksander Syrsky, Kyiv’s top general.” Russia has neared that total of Ukrainian territory, but it has taken Moscow eight months of advancing to do so.
The paper warns that it has not been able to independently verify the numbers, but the point is made.
According to a map by the Institute for the Study of War, most—but not all—of the land taken by Ukrainian forces inside Russia sits between the border and Russia’s field fortifications, which gives some indication of how that incursion will slow down, at which point the focus will shift to whether Ukraine can hold those 1,000 square kilometers. At the same time, according to a tick-tock of the planning and execution of the attack by the New York Times, the Russians will need to reassess a few strategic assumptions.
And for that matter, so should the United States and Europe. The counteroffensive was risky, and remains so. If Russia is able to repel the Ukrainians while further advancing on Ukrainian territory, the gamble will likely signal the beginning of the end of the war—and not in Ukraine’s favor.
Which is why the U.S. simply shouldn’t let it happen. For the Ukrainian incursion has not only exposed Moscow; it has also exposed Washington:
Early Wednesday, senior U.S. officials woke up to a shock: They learned that more than 1,000 regular Ukrainian Army forces had crossed the border the day before, equipped with mobile air defenses and electronic-warfare equipment to jam Russian radar. Some were driving in armored vehicles sent by Germany and the United States. The soldiers appeared to be planning for an extended fight.
As late as Thursday, U.S. officials said, they were still seeking clarity from Ukrainian officials on the operation’s logic and rationale. Since then, Ukrainian leaders have briefed senior U.S. civilian officials and top military commanders on their goals.
Further, we are told, U.S. officials “said they were surprised at how well the operation has gone so far.”
In fact, an incursion like this takes months to plan and prepare for. It never goes completely unnoticed, just misread. Troops from the eastern front moved into position in Sumy, across the border from Kursk, where the incursion was concentrated. A drone battalion from near Donetsk moved there as well, in July. Brigades from Kharkiv made the same move.
This cannot be done in silence. In one Russian border village, residents were awoken several nights in a row by the movement of Ukrainian military vehicles getting into position. In an ironic twist, some Russians who noticed it were brushed off as peddling misinformation.
So Ukraine surprised the world. And not for the first time—the early months of the war were marked by fierce Ukrainian resistance to the Russian army. Without proper help from the West, that resistance eventually gave way. This time, U.S. officials are paying close attention to what the advancing Ukrainian army’s challenges will be. Americans are “skeptical that the Ukrainians could hold onto their gains. And in making the incursion, they said, Ukraine has created new vulnerabilities along the front where its forces are already stretched thin.”
They sound as if they are watching the game from the cheap seats. But they aren’t, and it isn’t a game. Some of those vehicles that pushed into Kursk are from the U.S.; F-16s have finally arrived to help Ukraine bolster its border defense. This is not the first time but the second time that Western officials have been caught off-guard by Ukraine’s capabilities. Will it be the second time they allow the opportunity to disintegrate before their eyes?
There’s one more important consideration here: “If Ukrainian troops are able to hold territory, they could stretch the capacity of Russian troops, deliver a major embarrassment for Mr. Putin and get a bargaining chip for any peace negotiations.” Russia has paid a dear price in lives lost so far in this war; it has taken many away from their homes, never to return. But it has yet to bring the war to those Russian homes—at least, before the Kursk incursion. Losing Russian territory to Ukraine is a humiliation of the highest order for Putin. Russian illusions have been shattered, and they can’t be un-shattered.
A frozen conflict on Putin’s own soil is as rich a comeuppance as could be imagined at the start of this war. All Ukraine wants, in the end, is its own territory back. Is there anyone in the White House or in the capitals of Western Europe who think the Ukrainians haven’t earned the help they need to accomplish that?
