Reuters World News - Kursk: Can Ukraine’s big bet change the course of the war?

Episode Date: August 24, 2024

It's the biggest incursion into Russian territory since World War Two. In this special episode of Reuters World News, we look at how the Kursk offensive took Moscow and Ukraine's allies by surprise - but risks spreading their forces thin while fighting hots up in the east. Visit the Thomson Reuters Privacy Statement, opens new tab for information on our privacy and data protection practices. You may also visit megaphone.fm/adchoices, opens new tab to opt out of targeted advertising. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's the biggest incursion into Russian territory since World War II. The idea that Ukraine could turn the tables on Russia and burst onto the territory of its much bigger neighbor seemed unthinkable. But what does it mean for the wider war, where Russia is pressing ahead with its own offensive in eastern Ukraine? In today's special episode of Röitius World News, we look at how the Kursk offensive took the world by surprise, prompting mass evacuations from the Russian border areas,

but potentially spreading Ukraine's forces thin when the battle in the East heats up. I'm Tara Oaks in Liverpool. In Russia, acting governor of the Korsk region, Alexei Smyrnov, telling President Vladimir Putin this week that there's a significant number of air attacks, but that the situation is under control. After that meeting with regional governors, the Russian ambassador to the US, Anatoly Antonov, said Putin had formulated a response to the incursion, and those responsible will be punished.

But the element of surprise gone, both sides are pressing on. But what's the end game? A breaking news lead writer for Russia is Mark Trevelyan. Mark, how much was Russia caught out here? I think we could say that Russia was completely caught out. It's clear that. Russia's attention was elsewhere as this offensive was beginning, and that was quite dramatically illustrated just by looking at the official communications on that day. So the top news items for the Russian Defence Ministry, even for hours after the incursion had begun, were the fact that the top commander, General Gerasim of was visiting Russian units in the Donbassas region and setting new tasks for them. So the tone was quite sort of congratulatory and Garasim of himself was really in

the wrong place if he'd had any inkling that something so big was about to happen. It's certain that he wouldn't have been in that place at that time. And over the course of day one of the incursion, it took nearly 12 hours for the Russian Defence Ministry to acknowledge that any Ukrainian attack was taking place in Russia's Kursk region. And a lot of inaccurate information was really being put into the public domain by the governor of that region. He was saying things that turned out to be very quickly disproved, namely that the offensive had been stopped when it hadn't. And this kind of denial of the reality and scale of what was happening was a feature of the first several days from Russia's point of view. The Russian Defence Ministry didn't respond to requests

for comment from Reuters about Ukraine's incursion, and Ukraine's armed forces declined to comment about the ongoing operations. Mark, from what you've described, is there an indication that there was intelligence that gave Ukraine an insight that this could be an opportunity to exploit? Well, we know that Ukraine had been taking a close look at the defenses in the Corsk region as far back as the autumn of last year, and we know that actually because they publicly posted online about it, which seems remarkable. You know, it's clear that this was not just a spur of the moment thing. The Ukrainians had prepared the ground very carefully. It was an operation involving thousands of troops. Strikingly, they managed to preserve complete secrecy and operational security around

this in a way that contrasted very strikingly with last year's Ukrainian counteroffensive, which was telegraphed in advance and really failed to make any significant breakthrough against Russia. How does this reflect on President Vladimir Putin? Well, this is highly embarrassing for Putin because this really in a very dramatic fashion brings the war home to Russians. Remember, this is the war that Putin describes as a special military operation. It's supposed to be something that's taking place well away from Russian borders inside Ukraine, and yet Ukraine has turned the tables here and has bitten off a slice of Russian territory, at least for the time being. So Putin's response has been quite muted.

Russia has officially opened investigations into terrorist actions by Ukrainian forces, as it describes them, and it's declared a counter-terrorism regime in the three border regions adjoining Ukraine. So none of this, of course, is directly addressing the point that Russia's military has been outwitted and taken by surprise. So Putin, I think, is trying to maintain an appearance of business as usual, not to be seen to be switching into crisis modes. One of the issues for him is that in the course of the war, he has repeatedly appeared to draw these red lines starting from day one of Russia's invasion of Ukraine when he said, if anybody gets in our way, you'll meet with consequences such as you've never encountered in your history.

And these have been interpreted basically as nuclear warnings to the West. And yet here he is with Russia's territory having been invaded. So the question really, we don't know the answer to this, is does Putin have something up his sleeve? Will he finally decide that this is the moment in which he needs to somehow up the ante, go further than he's gone before? That's something we'll be watching out for very closely in the next few days and weeks. Does this incursion mean that we're moving any closer to any ceasefire or even peace talks?

Well, Ukraine has spoken about the need for talks. Remember, President Zelensky held this big international conference in Switzerland and a couple of months ago and Russia said it's a complete waste of time. We're not invited. So there's no point in this. Zelensky is talking about holding a follow-up meeting at which possibly Russia would be invited. We know that at various stages in the war, other parties have stated there, put forward peace plans, the Chinese, the Africans at one point. So we're also factoring into this as the upcoming U.S. election. So there are a lot of variables coming together here that could potentially combine to create an opening for some talks in the coming months, which if they

happened, would be the first since really the early weeks of the war, because since about April of 2022, there have been no negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. And many people think, at some point, if this war is to end and one day it will end, then a negotiation will need to take place. That's Ukraine's 41st mechanized brigade holding live fire exercises earlier this week. Not disclosing the location of the drills for security reasons, deputy commander of the brigade said that Ukraine was writing military history in its war against Russia. But as Keeb hailed the capture of another village on Russian soil this week, hundreds of Ukrainians were fleeing the eastern city of Pekrovsk as Russian forces advance.

So does that mean the Kersk offensive has been worth it so far? Dan Pellishuk is in Ukraine. Dan, what is Ukraine hoping to get out of this on a tangible level? I think first and foremost it's about shocking Russia essentially and diverting its force. from the east where Ukraine has been really taken quite a pummeling by Russian forces in many parts along its eastern front line for months and months. So I think probably the foremost motivation was to try and get Russia to divert those forces from points east to the Kursk region and at the same time sort of shocking the system, if you will. Ukraine also wants to, I think,

show the West that it's essentially still capable of staging offensive operations. If you recall some of the rhetoric that's been in the United States anyway kind of rolled out throughout the previous in recent months, questioning whether it's worth supporting a Ukraine that is really coming under heavy attack and seemingly unable to defend itself. Well, this is a pretty good answer by Ukraine, at least optically, that is able to surprise. Has it changed the mood in the country? It's too early to say. That said, it has been a very tough year for Ukraine, for the Ukrainian people, or the Ukrainian leadership, the military, leadership, political. leadership. Basically everyone in Ukraine, as it's taken so many hits out east with the advancing

Russian military, particularly in places like Chasseviar and currently, most recently, Pukrovsk. When they saw this incursion, particularly once they saw the Ukrainian sort of political monetary leadership finally owning it, because you remember the first week was sort of operational silence, not a whole lot of commentary from Ukraine. And then when President Zelensky came out and essentially owned it, the leadership and the military leadership has begun to be quite vocal about it. I think that's when Ukraine started feeling somewhat of a boost. I would be a bit hesitant to oversell it because, again, we're very early in this operation. A lot of things can still go wrong or at the very least there's another shoe to drop.

But I think it is worth saying that this has been at least some kind of boost to what has been a pretty dark situation in Ukraine over the past year or so. And for our listeners who haven't been following this day to day prior to the incursion, what was that dark situation like for Ukraine? Sure. Well, I think one simple way to think about it is looking back to the last time Ukraine was able to stage a surprise operation, a successful operation that captured a or retook in that case a significant amount of territory. And that was late 2022, but launched this summer counteroffensive in 2003, which began in early June. But it became apparent after a few months of fighting that things were not going well and that has largely been seen as a failure. Throughout much of this year, the Ukrainian lines out east, which is a very sprawling front line, have been, if not crumbling in parts, then under very serious strain. And add to that, the sort of months-long uncertainty that it occupied a lot of Ukrainians, political leaders, military leaders, about whether Western support would come in, particularly crucial U.S. ammunition. So that was also hanging over Ukraine's very kind of dark time when it was just not

really posting many winds on the battlefield. And you mentioned it still early in the operation, and a lot could still happen. But there are huge risks with this, right? I think they're very significant risks, and I think they're pretty clear. The main one, I think, being the fact that Ukrainian forces are still stretched quite thin. And that hasn't really changed too much.

Now, Ukraine overhauled its mobilization program recently, but the fruits of that are not really expected to appear for another several months, give or take. So we have to keep in mind that the Ukrainians are still stretched thin. On a practical level, on the ground, what weapons are they using? Are they using a lot of hardware that they got recently from the West? Well, it is difficult to confirm exactly what's being used on the ground and in what quantities without being in the midst of battle. But we do know that American high-precision artillery system, High Mars, has been active.

Crane's military boasted about using it against Russian pontoon bridges in the course region. So we know that the vaunted American high-Mars system has been at work. There have also been a British Challenger tank spotted, I believe, and American striker APCs. Bit of a hodgepodge of Western machinery out there. President Zelensky there saying that they will boost their forces out east. But how can they do that if they have forces in Kursk? Have they been thinning out their defense in the east to carry out this operation? The Ukrainians, of course, are quite mum about their battlefield movements

and about how many troops they've got where and what quantities of which troops are positioned where on the line. So we don't quite know yet. But what we can see is very swiftly advancing Russian force, particularly toward the strategic transport hub of Pekrovsk, which is a city in eastern Ukraine, which is really beginning now to come under direct threat by Russia. The Russian forces are about 10 kilometers from the outskirts,

and they have been moving on that sector with particular speed, especially over the past several weeks. It's part of this larger operation that's been building up over recent months. That's kind of part and parcel of Russia's broader aim to capture the entire essentially industrialized Dunbos region. German Chancellor Olaf Schultz saying this week that Ukraine did not consult them over the offensive. So how is it? been received with key allies while funding battles rumble on.

Rachel Armstrong is our Europe editor. So Rachel, what's been the reaction to the Kursk offensive so far from Ukraine's allies in Europe? The reaction has probably been quiet. When asked about it, the major European powers, most notably the Germans, have been quick to stress that they were not consulted about it. but they also want to stress that they see this as a defensive move from Ukraine, one that they are not publicly, at least according on them to stop. Perhaps the slightly more outspoken European country has been Britain.

British tanks have been seen in some images released by Russia as being part of this offensive, and Britain has said that they are happy for that to happen, and has even gone one step further in supporting Ukraine using long-range weapons as part of this offensive, which is something that the Americans have not done. You mentioned Germany, and this week Germany has said it plans to half its aid to Ukraine next year, betting that the shortfall will be made up by this G7 plan to loan Ukraine $50 billion. And Ukraine will be hoping that this show of strength in Kursk convinces allies that they still merit support, right? How convinced are they looking at this stage?

So we're entering into a cycle where international support for Ukraine is meeting domestic politics. Now, this $50 billion loan plan that has been put together by the G7, that was done with the view that it was going to get harder for countries individually to keep sending billions and billions of dollars to Kiev. So Ukraine's international allies in a way foresaw that it was going to get much, much harder to keep on sending billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine when they had their own fiscal issues at home and when they're entering into an electoral cycle, when there are significant parts of the population, particularly in America, particularly in Germany, which don't want to

see more and more money going to Ukraine when they would argue there are, more pressing things at home that the money should be spent on. So in a way, Ukraine allies have tried to preempt this by coming up with this mechanism. It's difficult for countries when they reduce the bilateral aid they are sending to Ukraine for that to look like anything other than a drop in firm support for Ukraine. And one of the towns Ukrainian forces have taken is Sutscher, through which Russia pumps gas from Western Siberia across Ukraine to the European Union. And perhaps remarkably, those gas supplies from Russia via Ukraine to the EU have kept flowing. Is there any indication that gas supplies at risk?

Now, that gas supply is mainly going to Austria at the moment, also some is going to Slovakia. And that gas is flowing as part of a five-year agreement. that was signed in 2019 with Gazprom and EU members. Now, that contract expires at the end of this year. And what happens then is not clear. It's a very lucrative contract for Gazprom, which is owned by the Russian state. I think it gets several billion dollars a year out of it. Ukraine gets some revenue because the companies have to pay Ukraine a fee to transit

gas, but actually the revenue Ukraine gets is not particularly substantial. I think Ukraine has to balance keeping EU members who receive this gas happy and on side with the optics and the financial calculus of keeping more money flowing into Gazprom's coffers. How important is that gas flow for those European states right now? But there are some very key negotiations. coming up, they will be done over the next few months about what happens when this contract expires. Now, Austria, which gets the most gas, has already started lining up contingency plans. It might be a bit more expensive, but it could do that. So it will be probably a test for the EU, a test in particular for Austria and Slovakia, is now the time to cut themselves off from

Russian gas altogether. And obviously, there's been a lot of attention on this Kursk offensive, given it's in Russian territory, but there's also still intense fighting in the east, right? How's Ukraine doing on that eastern front right now? While all the focus has been on Kursk, Russia has actually been grinding out, not enormous, but steady gains inside Ukraine. And one thing that will now be tested is, was Ukraine's bet that this incursion into Kursk would divert Russian troops a good one to make. It now looks like perhaps Russia hasn't pulled back a significant number of troops from Ukraine to help bolster its borders.

And it may be that Ukraine now needs to look at the calculation it makes as to how many troops does it commit to Kursk and perhaps other parts of Russia if it decides to make any other incursions versus how much does it try and bolster the line in the east? For the latest on both the Kursk Offensive and the ongoing battles in the east, head to Reuters.com or the Reuters app. Reuters World News is produced by Gail Issa, Jonah Green,

David Spencer, Christopher Walj Jasper, Sharon Reich Garson, and me, Tara Oaks. Sound design, music composition and engineering are by Josh Sommer. Our regular host is Kim B. in L. Carmel Grimmons is our senior editor and our executive editor is Leila DeCretzer. We'll be back on Monday with our daily headline show. To make sure you never miss an episode, subscribe on your favourite podcast player.