Elliot Petroff
Over the past two weeks, Ukraine has taken its fight with the Kremlin onto Russian soil. Kyiv’s offensive consisted of a daring raid into Russia’s Kursk region designed to bring the fight to Russian forces and draw the Kremlin’s combat troops away from its own territory.
Aside from a few headlines, though, Ukraine’s bold strategic gamble has gone largely unnoticed. That’s a shame because Kyiv’s initiative—and Moscow’s response to it—has made clear that persistent Western fears of Russian brinkmanship are overblown.
Up until now, both U.S. and European policies have been defined by caution and fear of Russian risk-taking. While President Biden has pledged to back Kyiv’s fight for “as long as it takes,” in practice, his administration has been slow to provide Ukraine with the weaponry it needs to win the fight decisively. And even when it has, that aid has been accompanied by onerous restrictions that have had the effect of limiting Ukraine’s fighting potential. European nations, meanwhile, have taken their cues from Washington and settled in for a long campaign of incremental assistance to Ukraine. The result has been a situation that—at least until recently—had settled into a strategic stalemate and positional warfare.
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