Andrea Kendall-Taylor & Michael Kofman
On August 6, 2024, Ukrainian forces launched a surprise cross-border offensive into Russia’s Kursk region—the biggest foreign incursion into Russian territory since World War II. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s response was telling. Days after Ukraine’s offensive, Putin railed against the United States and Europe. “The West is fighting us with the hands of the Ukrainians,” he said, reiterating his view that Russia’s war in Ukraine is in fact a proxy battle with the West. But he initiated no immediate military counterattack. Putin was unwilling to divert substantial numbers of troops away from their operations in eastern Ukraine even to recover territory back home. Three months later, with Ukrainian forces still in Kursk, Moscow instead brought in North Korean troops to help push them out—the first time in more than a century that Russia has invited foreign troops onto its soil.
Moscow’s actions underscore how, after almost three years since Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor, Putin is now more committed than ever to the war with Ukraine and his broader confrontation with the West. Although the conflict is first and foremost an imperial pursuit to end Ukraine’s independence, Putin’s ultimate objectives are to relitigate the post–Cold War order in Europe, weaken the United States, and usher in a new international system that affords Russia the status and influence Putin believes it deserves.
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