Luke Coffey and Can Kasapoğlu
Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine will soon enter its third winter, and there is no end in sight. A war that Russian military planners had hoped would last for only a few days has become a quagmire that has cost Russia hundreds of thousands of soldiers, thousands of pieces of heavy armor, hundreds of aircraft, and approximately one-third of its Black Sea Fleet. There are only two possible explanations for this failure: either Russia’s intelligence preparation of the battlefield (IPB) was grossly inaccurate; or the Kremlin’s generals caved under political pressure from President Vladimir Putin and invaded Ukraine with hardly any real military assessment.
This summer, the war took another unexpected twist. For the first time in more than 80 years, an outside power has invaded and controlled Russian territory. On August 6, thousands of Ukrainian troops and hundreds of armored vehicles began a surprise raid into Russia’s Kursk Oblast (see map 1). Reports indicate that Ukraine has captured more than 100 settlements and now controls substantial Russian territory. At the time of this publication, Russian forces have started counteroffensive operations. But open-source intelligence suggests that the Ukrainian military has the manpower, engineering capabilities, and logistics support to stabilize the front.
Georgian Legion Commander Mamuka Mamulashvili, whose forces are currently fighting in Ukraine, once said that “the fight for Ukraine will end on the territory of Russia.” The long-term battlefield impact of Ukraine’s military operation in Kursk remains to be seen. But if the operation is successful, it could dramatically change the direction of the war.
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