Ukraine’s Russia incursion is a new descent into disaster

While claiming total surprise at Ukraine’s cross-border incursion into Russia, which is being carried out with US-supplied military vehicles and weaponry, the Biden administration quickly offered an optimistic endorsement.

The Ukrainian assault in Russia’s Kursk region, President Biden declared, is “creating a real dilemma for Putin.” As a further signal of approval, Biden added that “we’ve been in direct contact — constant contact — with the Ukrainians. That’s all I’m going to say about it while it’s active.”

US officials meanwhile told the New York Times that Ukraine’s operation “is likely to make it harder for Moscow to mount a major renewed offensive in Ukraine’s east”, “…could eventually impose real costs on the Kremlin,” and “could also help rebuild sagging morale among Ukraine’s troops and war-weary population.”

Allied neoconservatives are even more sanguine. During a visit to Kyiv, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham hailed what he called a “bold, brilliant and beautiful” operation inside Russian territory, urged Ukraine to “keep it up,” and implored the US to supply even weaponry to “let these people fight.” Michael McFaul, a former US Ambassador to Moscow, likewise declared: “Maybe it’s time for Russians to rethink whether Putin is good for their security.”

Yet two and a half years into Russia’s invasion – the most devastating chapter of a war that started with a US-backed coup in Kyiv a decade ago – the Kursk operation offers yet one more reason for Ukrainians to ask the same question of the ultra-nationalists and NATO proxy warriors who have consistently chosen escalation over diplomacy, to Ukraine’s growing detriment.

According to the Times, the Ukrainian government informed US military and civilian officials that their goal in Kursk is to “create an operational dilemma for the Russians” by forcing them to divert troops from Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, which Russia now seeks to fully control after Kyiv’s longtime refusal to respect the Minsk Accords and the rights of millions of Russophile Ukrainians.

Yet while Ukraine has embarrassed the Russian military, they have not forced a pullback. As the Washington Post notes, Russia “has not diverted troops from [Donetsk] to defend the new Ukrainian assault.” And while US officials told the Times that Russia infantry units have withdrawn from Ukraine, they notably “would not say how many troops Russia appeared to be moving or exactly where they were coming from.” Moreover, these same officials have “not yet seen the Kremlin divert armored battalions and other combat power that they believe Russia would need to repel the incursion.” This is a clear sign that Russia is not in a panic, and instead relying on forces stationed at home. By contrast, to pull off its invasion of Kursk, Ukraine had to withdraw much-needed forces from the eastern front, the site of a growing Russian advance.

Ukraine’s other stated goal has been equally unsuccessful. According to the Times’ US government sources, the Ukrainians also hope that seizing Russian territory will “increase Ukraine’s bargaining leverage,” and force Moscow to give up recently acquired territory near Kharkiv.

Yet the opposite has occurred. In public remarks, Russian President Vladimir Putin has cast new doubt on negotiating with the Ukrainian government. “What kind of negotiations can we have with those who indiscriminately attack civilians or civilian infrastructure, or pose threats to nuclear power facilities?,” Putin said, the latter a reference to the latest attacks – dubiously blamed by Ukraine on Russia – on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant.

The Washington Post meanwhile reports that the Kursk offensive has blown up plans for an agreement that would end strikes on energy infrastructure in both countries. Although Russia has not fully renounced the planned negotiations, which were to be held in Doha later this month, it has postponed its participation indefinitely. According to one diplomatic source, the two sides were so close to a deal that there was “just minor details left to be worked out.” But another source added: “After Kursk, the Russians balked.”

Such a truce would be of far higher importance to Ukraine, whose power grid has been decimated by months of Russian attacks. According to the Post, Ukraine has lost of half its capacity for peak electricity consumption in the upcoming winter, and local officials are warning that power could be limited to a maximum of seven hours a day during the freezing cold. “We have one chance to get through this winter, and that’s if the Russians won’t launch any new attacks on the grid,” a Ukrainian official warned.

Why Kyiv and its NATO sponsors would risk this precarious position is not hard to discern. Zelensky remains boxed in by the powerful ultra-nationalists who have threatened violence if he negotiates with Russia, along with a chief patron in Washington that successfully undermined a peace deal the last time that he tried. When Zelensky walked away from the Istanbul talks under US-UK pressure in April 2022, Washington rewarded him the following month with an infusion of tens of billions of dollars in NATO weaponry. A similar injection came later that year, when the White House and Zelensky ignored Joint Chiefs chairman Gen. Mark Milley’s advice to negotiate with Russia – and Putin’s private overtures, which only emerged long after the fact – and instead handed US taxpayers another $45 billion bill for continued war.

Having tethered himself to conflict over compromise, Zelensky can only roll the dice and hope that Washington will reward him once more. As the New York Times notes, the Kursk offensive’s “real goals… may not be on the Russia battlefield” but instead mark an attempt “to change the war’s narrative.” As was the case with last summer’s failed counteroffensive, the intended audience is Washington: “The Ukrainians may be trying to convince the West that they will not give up, and that the United States in particular should allow them to use American long-range cruise missiles inside Russia.” In recent days, Zelensky has raised the issue of using long-range NATO weaponry to strike deep into Russia at least four different times. “We need appropriate permissions from our partners to use long-range weapons,” he said. “This is something that can significantly advance the just end of this war.”

Yet just as NATO has gifted Ukraine with new weaponry for every stage of bellicosity, Russia has meted out severe punishment by capturing one-fifth of its territory and attacking Ukraine’s energy supply. While proxy warriors far from the battlefield are visibly gleeful that the war is being brought home to Russia, those concerned about Ukraine’s long-term future – and a speedy end to this disastrous war – can only lament Kyiv’s further descent into disaster.