Ukraine’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk region could hand Kyiv leverage in negotiations with Russia, but defending gains could also be a high-risk strategy, according to a former general who has outlined three options for the operation.
Thousands of citizens in Kursk and Belgorod oblasts have been evacuated on Monday as Ukraine’s forces made apparent advances deeper into Russian territory, six days after launching an offensive.
Kyiv has been tight-lipped about the operation apart from a reference to it by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who said on Saturday about actions “to push the war into the aggressor’s territory.”
Amid speculation about what Ukraine’s forces plan to do in the incursion, retired Australian Army major general Mick Ryan said one option could be for Kyiv to consolidate on the terrain seized so far and defend it ahead of negotiations.
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However, Ryan said that this would be the “highest risk option” for Ukraine because the multiple salients of the operation could be “easily cut off and destroyed by even a semi-competent Russian commander.”
“The high probably of losing a large number of forces in this scenario makes it a strategic and political liability,” Ryan wrote in a Substack article published as an op-ed in the English-language newspaper Kyiv Post on Monday.
“Ukraine could lose battalions and brigades, as well as artillery, EW (electronic warfare) and air defense it could not afford to lose.”
A second option would be to partially withdraw from seized territory to more defensible ground, Ryan said. This would ensure that troops could be reallocated elsewhere such as defending in the Donbas region or future cross-border attacks into Russia.
This would also maximize the benefits of the strategic shock, while reducing the risks of losing that combat force, Ryan wrote.
But a third option for Zelensky could be to fully withdraw back to the border, maximizing the political and strategic benefits of the incursion while preserving experienced combat troops who would be needed in future.
This would send the message to the Russians “we can invade and hurt your country if we choose, but we have no wish to occupy our neighbors,” Ryan wrote.
This move would “humiliate” Putin, preserve Ukrainian combat forces and show Ukraine’s allies it can “go on the offensive in a way that pose an existential risk to the ground forces conducting the operation.”
Newsweek has contacted for comment the defense ministries of Ukraine and Russia about Kyiv’s incursion. It has sparked alarm among Russian military bloggers who give far more critical accounts of what is happening on the front line than state media outlets.
The Telegram channel Rybar said on Monday that, despite the deployment of additional Russian troops, Moscow has not been able to stabilize the front line as Ukrainian forces flood the area with groups on armored vehicles along front-line villages.
“In the Kursk direction, the enemy continues to make attempts to build on the successes of previous days,” the post read.