Ukraine’s Push Into Russia Met Early Success. Where Does It Go From Here?

The success of Ukraine’s secret incursion into Russia is clear. Ukrainian forces pushed past two lines of Russian defenses in the southwestern region of Kursk and moved through Russian highways and villages with little resistance. Since the operation began 11 days ago, they have gone beyond Kursk to the neighboring region of Belgorod, putting other communities on edge and rattling Moscow.

The ultimate strategy and goals of the invasion, though, are still murky. Western allies, including the United States and Germany, say they are watching and monitoring the situation but letting Ukraine lead the way. Even the Ukrainian leadership seems surprised by the extent of the operation’s initial success, the first time that Russia, a nuclear power, has been invaded since World War II.

So now what?

Ukraine has several options.

Ukrainian forces could try to keep pushing further into Russia. They could dig into the territory they now hold and try to defend it. Or, battered by continual losses in eastern Ukraine, especially this week near the strategically important city of Pokrovsk, they could decide that they have made the point to the West, and to Moscow, that Russia is not invincible. In that case, they could then pull back.

“We are playing here a bit on the psychological point that great powers do not lose their territories,” said Mykola Bielieskov, a senior analyst from Come Back Alive, a foundation that provides support to members of Ukraine’s military. If Russia loses, “it means that they are not that big.”

There are vulnerabilities for both sides.

Ukrainian officials have told senior United States civilian and military officials that the operation aims to create an operational dilemma for the Russians — to force Moscow to divert troops off the front lines in the eastern Ukraine region of Donetsk, where they have made slow but steady progress for weeks.

John Kirby, the U.S. National Security Council spokesman, said in an interview with MSNBC on Thursday that Russia had begun deploying its forces to Kursk, although he did not specify where they were coming from. He declined to give an assessment of the Ukrainian operation in Kursk, but said the United States was monitoring how Russia is reacting and redeploying its troops.

“In the meantime, we are going to continue to make sure that Ukraine has the weapons and capabilities that it needs to defend itself,” Mr. Kirby said. “We are going to continue to talk to Ukrainians.”

But the operation has also created a vulnerability for Kyiv. Some of its valuable, battle-hardened soldiers from the 600-mile front line in eastern and southern Ukraine have moved to Kursk. And that has weakened its positions in eastern Ukraine.

By Aug. 9, four days into the Russian incursion, Russian forces had pushed to about 10 miles outside the beleaguered eastern Ukrainian town of Pokrovsk, a critical logistics hub for Ukrainian forces, according to Britain’s Defense Ministry. Russian forces have been hitting them along this stretch of the Donetsk region for months.

By Thursday, the situation was even worse. Residents of Pokrovsk, about 40,000 people, were urged to leave — the Russian Army was about eight miles from the city.

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said on Thursday that Russian troops had also made gains toward the frontline town of Toretsk, whose capture would ease the way for Russian forces in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.

Ukraine, it appears, wants to hold ground.

So far, the Ukrainians have not talked publicly about their plans in Russian territory. Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, who took over as Ukraine’s top military commander in February, claimed on Thursday that his troops had pushed more than 21 miles into Russia. He said that Ukraine controlled more than 80 Russian settlements in the Kursk region, including Sudzha, a town of 6,000. The claims could not be independently verified, although analysts say that Sudzha is likely under full Ukrainian control.

Fighting has also expanded to the neighboring regions of Belgorod and Bryansk, where Russia has introduced counterterrorism measures.

As Ukrainian soldiers make inroads into Russia, the leadership appears to be making plans to hold ground, analysts say.

Mr. Syrsky said on Thursday that Ukraine had set up its first military office in Kursk. A deputy prime minister talked about creating a humanitarian corridor extending from the Kursk region south to the Ukrainian border region of Sumy. At a Wednesday meeting, President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Ukrainian troops were protecting Russian citizens and following the rules of international law.

Ukraine is nimble, but Russia is bigger.

So far, Ukrainian troops do not seem to be building the kind of entrenched lines seen in eastern Ukraine, where trenches, anti-armored vehicle ditches and anti-tank pyramid obstacles known as dragon’s teeth dot the landscape.

Such digging in presents risks, said Serhii Kuzan, the chairman of the Ukrainian Security and Cooperation Center, a nongovernmental research group.

Any fixed position would be exposed to potentially devastating Russian airstrikes and would be difficult to defend against Russian troops attacking from different sides. Russia, after all, has the upper hand in forces and weapons.

Mr. Kuzan said Ukraine should instead continue to execute what he called “highly maneuverable combat operations,” by attacking where Russia does not expect and performing raids with small units to probe and destabilize Russian defenses.

“We cannot fight a symmetrical war — tank against tank, soldier against soldier — because the Russians have greater numbers of forces,” Mr. Kuzan said.

Ukraine has not faced much resistance from Russian forces at this point. Moscow has been slow to mount a major defense and has not yet successfully countered Ukrainian troops in Kursk, analysts say. Russian military bloggers, though, claimed that Ukrainian forces were advancing at a slower tempo on Thursday.

The gains in Russia could provide negotiating leverage.

Analysts say the Ukrainians could also use the territory as a kind of bargaining chip with Russia, if they manage to hold it. Ukrainian officials have told Washington that Kyiv wants leverage for the future, according to U.S. officials, perhaps to swap the Russian territory for land near Kharkiv that Russian forces took in the spring.

Mykhailo Podolyak, a top Ukrainian presidential adviser, said on Friday that Russia would be forced to the negotiating table only through suffering “significant tactical defeats.”

“In the Kursk region, we can clearly see how the military tool is being used objectively to persuade” Russia to enter “a fair negotiation process,” he wrote on social media.

Ukraine also claims to have captured hundreds of Russian prisoners of war, who could be traded for Ukrainian prisoners held by Russia. The Russians guarding the border posts in Kursk were mostly conscripts, forced to serve as part of Russia’s mobilization, as opposed to the battle-hardened contract soldiers and irregular forces fighting in Ukraine’s east and south.

Putting those conscripts at risk poses a political risk for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia; in Ukraine, Mr. Zelensky has referred to an “exchange fund” that Ukraine has starkly increased.

Kyiv may be sending a message.

The real goals of the operation may not be on the Russia battlefield.

After the failure of Ukraine’s much-advertised counteroffensive last year and the ongoing losses in the east, it appears to be trying to change the war’s narrative.

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.

After all, it has happened before: Over the 30 months of this war, the United States has repeatedly refused to supply Ukraine with certain kinds of weapons or to use those weapons in certain ways, only to then relent.

Over the past week, Mr. Zelensky has raised the issue of striking Russia with Western-supplied long-range missiles at least four times in his nightly video addresses.

“We need appropriate permissions from our partners to use long-range weapons,” he said on Monday. “This is something that can significantly advance the just end of this war.”