Kursk Is a Win for Zelenskyy and a Loss for Putin

While the long-term consequences of the operation remain unclear, the short-term upside is obvious.

On top of my day job at Stanford, I work as an international affairs analyst for NBC and MSNBC. Whenever I am on TV, commenting on recent developments in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, I try not to pretend to play a general (especially when I'm on TV with real retired generals!). Therefore, since Ukraine invaded Russia on August 6^th, I have been reluctant to give any grand takes on the military wisdom of this effort. I’m not an expert on war. I don’t know. I’m not even sure what to call it. An invasion? An incursion? A military intervention?

The political implications of Ukraine’s Kursk incursion, however, are becoming increasingly clear: It is bad for Putin and Russian society and good for Zelenskyy, his soldiers, and Ukrainians.

There is no way Putin and his apologists in the West can continue to spin events in Kursk as a Ukrainian mistake. Three weeks ago, Russian pundits in Moscow and Ukrainian skeptics in Europe and the United States immediately denounced the military move as reckless and desperate; the mighty Russian army would slaughter the Ukrainian invaders with ease, or so the argument went. Three weeks later, that has not happened— quite the opposite. Putin’s ability to mobilize forces to launch, let alone win, a counteroffensive has proven to be limited so far. In the meantime, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have gained momentum and are advancing deeper into Russia’s Kursk region.

Putin cannot continue to dismiss the significance of this incursion. This is the first time that the Soviet Union or Russia has been invaded since Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa on June 22, 1941! The sacred duty of all commanders-in-chief is to defend their homeland. After all, this was one of Putin’s justifications for invading Ukraine: “defend the homeland” from “hostile Western forces.” Moreover, the significance of defeating the Nazis in World War II (also known as the Great Patriotic War) strongly lingers in the collective memories of many post-Soviet societies, but that is especially true in Russian society. Victory over Nazi Germany is a source of national pride and glory for many older Russians. Thus, to be invaded again is an embarrassment, a disgrace, and a sign of weakness.

Moreover, Kursk is not just a one-off sign of Putin’s military weakness. In June 2023, in an unexpected move, Evgeny Prigozhin, then head of the private paramilitary, the Wagner Group (now Africa Corps), and his troops orchestrated an armed mutiny, demanding the resignation of Russia’s Ministers of Defense. They quickly and without a fight seized Rostov – an important logistical headquarters for Russia’s Ministry of Defense in its war with Ukraine – and started marching toward Moscow, once again facing weak resistance. Putin did not stop the mutiny through military force; instead, he negotiated an end to the uprising with the assistance of Belarusian autocrat Alexander Lukashenka. That also was not a strong look. Read more about it here. Months later, Putin killed Prigozhin in an airplane crash and defused the coup plotters. This episode, however, exposed the weakness of the Russian security forces inside the country, exactly as is now happening again in Kursk.

In addition, Putin has failed to evacuate the Russian people from the Kursk region but also failed to keep the scope of the invasion secret. In an August 12^th  televised meeting of security officials, Putin cut off Kursk’s acting governor, Andrei Smirnov, when Smirnov openly disclosed that 28 villages had been captured and at least 2,000 Russians were missing in Ukraine-occupied territories. And, though we should be skeptical of our ability to gauge Russian public opinion, a recent Kremlin-commissioned poll showed that “against the backdrop of the incursion, the share of Russians who believe an ‘anxious mood’ is predominant in their social circles shot up six points to 45 percent (Source: Meduza). As one of the officials close to the Kremlin told Meduza, the Putin administration considered this figure quite high and hoped it would come down quickly. To aid such efforts, the Kremlin has employed propagandists to convince Russians that such realities are simply a “new normal.”

President Vladimir Putin talks with the governor of Kursk on August 12, 2024. Source: Office of the President of the Russian Federation via Wiki Commons.

In Ukraine, the Kursk incursion has produced tangible benefits. First, Zelenskyy succeeded in reversing the growing global narrative that Ukraine was losing the war. Second, Zelenskyy has undermined Western voices calling on the Ukrainian leader to swap land for peace. The discussion has changed, at least for now, to be about land swaps. Zelenskyy's negotiation position is most certainly stronger today than it was three weeks ago. Third, the psychological boost for Ukrainians is palpable in the reporting I read and in my daily conversations with Ukrainians. One of my friends was just in Pokrovsk and told me that the moral boost from Kursk for soldiers fighting there was very apparent. Kursk has not yet compelled Putin to pull soldiers out of Donbas to fight inside Russia, as was hoped for, but the Kursk offensive has lifted the spirits of Ukrainian soldiers fighting in Donbas.

The final chapter of the Battle for Kursk has yet to be written, but the short-term benefits for Ukraine and the short-term losses for Russia are already apparent.