This is an audio transcript of the Rachman Review podcast episode: ‘Ukraine wrongfoots Russia in Kursk’
Ben Hall
Hello and welcome to The Rachman Review. I’m Ben Hall, the FT’s Europe editor, standing in for Gideon while he’s on holiday. This week’s edition is about Ukraine’s incursion into Russia, a so far stunningly successful offensive that has changed the narrative of the war. My guest is Andriy Zagorodnyuk, former defence minister and chair of the Centre for Defence Strategies in Kyiv.
When Ukrainian troops moved into the Kursk region of western Russia two weeks ago, it seems to have taken Vladimir Putin and the rest of the world by surprise. What is the strategy behind the move? How could it affect the fighting elsewhere on the frontline? And could it prove to be a turning point in the war?
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News clip
This is the tip of Ukraine’s spear. Ukrainian special forces pushing deeper into Russia.
Ben Hall
It has been a little over two weeks since Ukrainian forces smashed through flimsy defences and mounted the first foreign invasion of Russian territory since the second world war. The incursion has boosted Ukrainian morale, restored confidence in its offensive potential and given Kyiv a possible bargaining chip in future peace negotiations.
Ukraine’s military claims to have taken 1,200 sq km of Russian territory, but its progress has slowed markedly in recent days as beefed-up Russian forces put up stiffer resistance. Meanwhile, questions are mounting about the wisdom of Kyiv taking experienced and skilled units away from its overstretched forces on the eastern front, where Russia is still advancing.
News clip
Residents of Pokrovsk flee the city as Russian troops advance. Authorities in the eastern Ukrainian city ordered it to be evacuated on Monday. As they departed, locals described a situation where the bombardment of the front, just a few miles away, had them constantly on edge.
Ben Hall
Could this prove to be a shortlived gamble that ends up costing Ukraine dearly? I started my conversation with Andriy Zagorodnyuk by asking him to bring us up to date on the state of the Ukrainian operation in Kursk.
Andriy Zagorodnyuk
Officially, Ukrainian government and Ukrainian military command are not giving exact up-to-date report on that. That’s partly because of a very unclear situation with several settlements, and the situation has changed sometimes on the hourly basis. What we know is that there are very intense fights there. Some areas Russia has already got some reinforcements. And so they are, of course, trying to resist Ukraine from expanding. From what we understand, Ukrainian forces are actively manoeuvring in the region. Generally speaking, the intent is to continue operation and basically use all opportunities to expand the area of control.
Ben Hall
You think the Ukrainian army will continue to press forward as much as they can, or will they reach a point where they just say, listen no further, we need to dig in and hold what we’ve got?
Andriy Zagorodnyuk
I think both and that’s what we see right now. So in some areas they are already settling in, some areas they’re still pressing. And I believe that that will continue, which means that there would be constant back-and-forth movement. So basically would be a constant area of movement most likely.
Ben Hall
Why?
Andriy Zagorodnyuk
Well holding positions is extremely difficult. The line is not straight. To set up the area which is completely sealed from the forces from the other side is probably, in most of the cases, would be physically impossible.
Ben Hall
Ukraine achieved this surprise attack using manoeuvre warfare, making the best use of electronic warfare to jam Russian drones and weapon systems. To what extent do you think that holds sort of lessons for Ukraine going forward? Is this a sort of a breakthrough in this war, or is it just particular to this bit of the front line?
Andriy Zagorodnyuk
Well, it’s a breakthrough on different levels. It’s certainly a breakthrough for Russians to understand that they have extremely weak flanks if they’re not looking at areas where they concentrate the most. Russia has very little reserves. The reserves were scattered around. They had no plan for quick deployment of the reserves. They were not prepared for any of this scenario, which is strange. So that is something which people see right now. And they are understanding that basically Russian armed forces and their military system is much weaker than it was discussed before.
But of course, the key operational objective would be to distract the forces from the east of Ukraine. That would be the most logical one. And based on all indirect and direct statements and whatever we know about this operation, that is the main operational objective. So is it already a success? Probably not yet in full. However, we see that there’s already some movements which were originally not planned by Russian military leadership. And also, we know that Russian military leadership is very centralised, particularly in the times of crisis, which means that they would be distracting their attention from these two in order to deal with Kursk.
Then there are political side effects. The main one is that when Putin was saying about the negotiations with the new realities, he was saying that, yeah, we’re happy to negotiate, we’re happy to talk. But you need to understand that there are new realities now. Russia controls part of Ukraine, and that’s it. And there’s nothing you can do about that. Well, now, new realities is that Ukraine controls part of Russia, but I don’t think that was the main operational objective.
Ben Hall
You mean Ukraine seizing Russian territory as a sort of bargaining chip for negotiations was not the main objective for Ukraine?
Andriy Zagorodnyuk
Yeah. And the reason for that is that from what we understand, there is very little hope that negotiations will be conducted in good faith anyway by the Russians. We already went through a long, long negotiation history years and years. Basically, 10 years ago, the Minsk process started and all the time it was Russia becoming a little bit stronger, a little bit more confident. They are reconsidering everything which was agreed before. So basically it was like endless process never ending. And there’s very little people in Ukraine who believe that Russia can actually negotiate properly to reach some kind of conclusion and to actually stop the war.
Ben Hall
In terms of the objectives of this incursion, if you didn’t think it was about establishing leverage in a negotiation, do you think it was about changing perceptions in western capitals, essentially about the course of this war, about Ukraine’s position? It now looks quite a lot stronger than it did just a month ago. And in view of possible changes in Washington, with the election later this year, was this also about sort of sending a message to the next US president — whoever that might be — that Ukraine will be in a lot stronger position when it comes to talks? Or even if talks don’t happen, that this will be used as a way of, I suppose, restoring some faith in western capitals that Ukraine can still win this war?
Andriy Zagorodnyuk
We cannot say that it was a major objective. As a side effect, possibly, but not as a main objective. Frankly speaking, the state of the Russian forces is quite well known to governments of our allies, and it’s even known to OSINT [open source intelligence] analysts as well. They knew that the presence of the troops in areas which are not Donbas or not around Kharkiv at that time is extremely scattered. And the quality of the troops, if I may say so, or readiness combatability is very low. So it was well known. Could Ukraine change their course of war using that fact? That was the main question.
But what happened is that Russia was constantly projecting image of success with Ukraine for the last year. So since the time of unhappy counteroffensive, basically since probably October of last year, there’s been a constant projection that Russia is winning the war. It was based on their local air superiority, which they used to throw the gliding bombs, and then sending large amounts of people with the horrible casualty rate. But Russia was projecting that it is acceptable casualty rate. They are happy with this.
So right now the Ukrainian forces have proven that this is not the recipe for ultimate success. So even with that, Russia still can lose. And so people are reconsidering the notion that Russia has developed some kind of a winning algorithm and now is invincible. It is not invincible. That fact makes a huge kind of rippling effect in capitals, in analytical community and so on.
Ben Hall
For the moment, though, Russian forces are continuing to press ahead. Arguably, they’re moving ahead more quickly now in certain parts of the eastern front than they were before, around Pokrovsk and Toretsk, in particular two Ukrainian towns that are really under threat now. So that would suggest that this Kursk offensive has not yet deflected enough Russian attention and manpower from a critical part of the eastern front. Do you think it’s only a matter of time before they’re forced to do that? Or actually, is Ukraine willing to sacrifice bits of territory in the east in order to open up this other front inside Russia itself?
Andriy Zagorodnyuk
Well, first of all, we don’t know. It’s up to military command to decide. We don’t see them abandoning anything, so they still keep on going. There was, however, information that they were ready to open another line of attack, perhaps in Kharkiv, perhaps in Sumy area. And they haven’t done that, obviously, and that might be already at some degree of success. But you’re right that they are moving in Donbas. Not very fast, but nevertheless. I mean, we absolutely cannot predict what the decision of military command is going to be.
The thing is that if Russia is not moving any troops at all to enforce their position and course, they’re going to lose more territory and certainly they’re not going to return the territory. I don’t think that’s going to be acceptable situation for them eventually. So they will have to deal with that. Seems like Russia consciously decided not to get back their territory yet in order to pursue their objectives in Donbas. And we know that they don’t have forces to occupy the whole Donbas. So, frankly speaking, the logic of Russian command is still unclear.
Ben Hall
But your assumption is that President Putin will not be able to countenance a long-term Ukrainian occupation of the Kursk region, that he will be forced to throw a lot more resources at retaking that territory and inevitably will have to pull him away from the Donbas.
Andriy Zagorodnyuk
Well, from somewhere and since they don’t have many reserves, then yes. I don’t think he will be able to politically afford to keep part of Kursk region under Ukrainian control and still say that his special operation is succeeding.
Ben Hall
And the costs of Ukraine’s occupation of this region are inevitably going to draw away Ukrainian men and material to defend this territory. And as you mentioned at the beginning, Russia is pouring war forces in there. So the danger for Ukraine, surely, is that this becomes a very costly defence of Russian-occupied territory.
Andriy Zagorodnyuk
Those decisions couldn’t be taken without the president and without his high command. Obviously, all these decisions are discussed there. And so the whole operation, the response to the situation in Donbas, the continuation in Kursk and so on, it’s all discussed. So it’s not like a personal decision of a single individual. And I know that they don’t gamble. They think things through. Obviously, that would be a concern.
Ben Hall
The FT and other media organisations have spoken to soldiers and officers in the east and units that were transferred very recently from the east to the Kursk offensive. And many of them do express deep concern about weakening the defence there and leaving already overstretched forces even more thinly manned. Isn’t this a sort of dangerous gamble that the Ukrainian military command is taking?
Andriy Zagorodnyuk
We all knew that Ukrainian forces don’t have a massive surplus, and as soon as Kursk started, the question was how risky that is. And as a result, I think that the fact that they keep on manoeuvring, it’s explained by their lack of desire to set up a stable front line, because stable front line would lead to a very similar operational set-up that in Donbas. And so most likely they would be addressing that issue to make sure that this doesn’t turn into another grinding war.
Ben Hall
Another trench system.
Andriy Zagorodnyuk
Yeah. The thing is that obviously the situation changes on a daily basis, and obviously it’s a very risky operation in any case, we need to understand that. What was clearly unsafe is to keep playing Russian playbook on that war. And so everybody expected military command to do something that’s symmetric. That was clearly asymmetric. And I believe that these openings and these opportunities are still around not just in that Kursk area. There are other areas as well where Russia is weak. I obviously cannot say for sure, but I sincerely hope that that’s not the only asymmetric solution, which we’re going to see in the foreseeable future.
Ben Hall
Where might one see another asymmetric operation? Do you think Crimea is something that we should be looking out for?
Andriy Zagorodnyuk
I’m sure that we will, but the whole idea is to be surprised. So obviously, you know, we’re not going to discuss it today now. But the thing is that the only way Ukraine cannot allow Russia to win and win itself is through doing something out of the box. We clearly have seen from this one that the response of Russians is extremely slow, very unresolved and hesitant. And it takes time because nobody wants to make unpopular decisions, nobody wants to take initiative. It’s a typical Russian system of chain of command. Very centralised.
And as soon as the problem come up, people are immediately closing because they understand that making mistake during that time is the worst thing for their careers. So they would rather do nothing. And we have seen this in Kursk extremely well. That’s a textbook case on Russian command and control system reaction on the untraditional, asymmetric, non-linear situations.
Ben Hall
We’re only barely more than two weeks into this operation, so it seems to me premature to call this a turning point in the war. And it may, of course, just be a temporary change in perceptions of Ukraine’s abilities. But do you think it has the potential to become a turning point in this war?
Andriy Zagorodnyuk
Well, for sure, but also on perception, we clearly see right now there’s substantial shortcomings of Russian military organisation. We see that they are too concentrated on Donbas. And basically the way they plan the operation in Ukraine has serious gaps. Russia did exactly the same with Ukraine by surprise attack in Kharkiv. In the case of Kharkiv, Ukraine reacted much faster, pulled reserves much quicker and basically mitigated as much as possible the crisis in a shorter period of time and with way better results.
For Russians, the Kursk co-operation was a total surprise. Despite having a much bigger resources and intelligence, they still haven’t seen the movements. Even if they collected the facts, they couldn’t interpret them properly. So essentially they did not translate those movements into the threat and they did not come up with a command and say, hey, looks like Ukrainians are planning something here. We need to reinforce. As soon as the incursion started, it took them time to decide what to do. The decision was extremely slow and Ukraine got basically moved quite significant distance before Russia started to do anything meaningful. And certain units started to panic like [Chechen] Akhmat unit. We have seen that they just left, and that shows that they are not well prepared for the out-of-the-box decisions. And we can make this conclusion already, regardless how things will develop in the future.
Whether this is going to be strategically a turning point in the war, of course, yes. We’ll have to see that in the future. It’s too early to say.
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Ben Hall
That was Andriy Zagorodnyuk speaking to me from Kyiv. And that’s it for this week. Before I sign off, we’d love to hear a bit more about you and what you like about this show. We’re running a short survey and anyone who takes part before August the 29th will be entered into a prize draw for a pair of Bose QuietComfort 35 wireless headphones. You can find a link to the survey and terms and conditions for the prize draw in our show notes.
Thanks for listening. Gideon will be back next week, so please join us again for another edition of The Rachman Review.