Ukraine's Kursk Blunder Opens the Door for Russian Invasion of the North

Gulf Insider

15-03-2025

The true purpose behind Ukraine's attack on the Kursk region of Southwest Russia has been hotly debated, mostly because the area holds little to no traditional strategic purpose. Not all seized territory has equal value in a war; some territory has no value.
Some believe that the incursion was meant to open a door to an attack on the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant, which could then be held hostage or sabotaged, leaving a radioactive mess for the Russians to clean up. But the plant is too far from the border to be successfully captured by anything other than a large scale offensive force with superior logistics.
Others argue that the mere act of invading Russian soil (no matter how useless) was intended to send a message to Ukraine's western allies that Vladimir Putin's 'red lines' are a false front and that he would never respond with a nuclear defense. In other words, Kursk was supposed to encourage US and European officials to enter the war with boots on the ground.
It remains to be seen if Putin would in fact use the nuclear option, but Ukraine certainly isn't worth taking the risk, at least not for the majority of western citizens.
Kyiv has claimed that the action was designed to lure Russian troops away from the eastern front where they have been making significant gains, thus slowing the Kremlin's attrition machine and giving Ukraine a better position at the negotiating table. If this was the intent, then the plan failed.
The momentum in Kursk was contained within a couple weeks of the operation and the Ukrainians have been stuck there ever since. In the past month their gains in the area have been whittled down and now their lines are imploding. It is expected that Russia will take back the last Ukrainian holdings within the next two weeks, but this is not the biggest problem Ukraine faces after the failure of their Kursk operation.
At the end of February the Russians were already initiating cross-border strikes into the Sumy Oblast of Northern Ukraine and it looks as though these strikes might turn into a full invasion.
As we noted at the end of December, the Kursk attack by Ukraine could end up backfiring in spectacular fashion. With tens of thousands of Russian troops amassed in the region, the fall of Ukrainian lines means the path is open for those same troops to come pouring into Sumy and cut the country in half.
Vladimir Putin's recent appearance in Kursk and ample geolocation data in the town of Sudzha proves that the area is well under Russian control despite claims that the Ukrainians are holding. Russian incursions into Sumy have also escalated.
The troop surge comes just as the Trump Administration positions for peace negotiations, an effort which is meeting resistance from all sides. Even US allies within NATO are insisting that the war continue until Ukraine gains back all of its lost territory (which they know is not going to happen). The precarious nature of peace talks is amplified by Putin's refusal to enter into a ceasefire agreement. Putin claims the ceasefire would serve no purpose other than to allow Ukraine to strengthen their lines.
The western media continues to promote the narrative that Russia is using thousands of North Korean soldiers as 'meat waves' to run Ukraine out of Kursk. We're still waiting for any significant evidence to back this claim but none has materialized. Russia has multiple ethnic groups within the country that 'look Asian' and the presence of these people on the battlefield is not proof of North Korean troops. To this day there is no evidence of 'meat waves' or a large contingent of DPRK soldiers.
In any case, Kursk is lost to the Ukrainians, which will hopefully give Volodymyr Zelensky and Kyiv motivation to finally agree to realistic peace negotiations. If not, then the Russians are perfectly positioned to invade Northern Ukraine and close in on Kyiv.
Putin has presented two terms for any agreement: Ukraine must give up the captured Donbas region and allow the separatists to join Russia. And, Ukraine is never allowed to join NATO.
Sadly, these were the basic terms at the very beginning of the war. Hundreds of thousands of lives (perhaps millions when the true tally is revealed) could have been saved if peace talks had not been interfered with in 2022. If peace is achieved now, at least World War III can be avoided.