What is Ukraine really up to with its audacious Kursk land grab?

One month on from President Zelensky’s Russian incursion began, Mary Dejevsky asks whether it is a strategic game-changer as a powerful bargaining chip – or simply a defensive move to prevent a direct march on Kyiv

Shock and awe: Residents leave an apartment building in Kursk that has been damaged in shelling by Ukrainian forces (AP)

The longer the war in Ukraine goes on, the more different facets it seems to acquire. From a straight bilateral conflict precipitated by Russia’s all-out invasion of February 2022, it became a war between Russia and Ukraine-plus – the “plus” being all the logistical and material help of the United States and other Western allies.

It then settled into a largely localised conflict for eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region, before a month ago suddenly acquiring a new front, when Ukraine invaded the bordering Russian region of Kursk. And it has now spawned new divisions on the Western side, although it is not entirely clear where the lines of those divisions run.

Of the recent developments, I would single out two for special mention. The first and most obvious is the opening of the Kursk front. The second is the apparent falling-out between the UK and Ukraine, which reflects a shift in the simmering Western divisions.

Questions surround practically every aspect of Ukraine’s Kursk offensive, from why it was launched to how it is progressing and how it might end. Volodymyr Zelensky has said it was intended, in part, to draw Russian forces from the Donbas, where they had been gaining ground to the point where they could actually control all the territory Moscow declared it had annexed (illegally) in September 2022.

Another objective may have been to seize land and take prisoners as bargaining chips in any negotiations to come. Some have also mooted the idea that Zelensky and his armed forces chief, Oleksandr Syrskiy, eyed the Kursk advance as a diversion, should Russia force a Ukrainian retreat from the Donbas. A more tantalising view is that it is an attempt to block Russia’s most direct path to Ukraine’s capital, should it overrun the Donbas and turn its sights towards Kyiv.

A complicating factor, however – and one that some see as at least part of Ukraine’s original intention, if not the whole purpose – is the Kursk nuclear power station. During its initial 2022 invasion, Russia made a beeline for Ukraine’s nuclear plants, in the name of security, and has controlled them ever since. One idea is that Ukraine wanted to capture the Kursk station to “trade” for the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station in eastern Ukraine, in the hope that it could be used to boost Ukraine’s depleted capacity as winter sets in.

In contrast, reports of what is happening in the Kursk region are contradictory. Ukraine claims advances; Russia says the advance has been stalled, with heavy losses for Ukraine in personnel and hardware (including the by-now famous British-supplied Challenger tank). It is not clear whether Russia’s latest strikes on Ukraine’s energy installations are its response to the Kursk operation, or whether Russia might also be preparing to repel or to trap Ukraine’s invasion force, which comprises some of its most highly trained and best-equipped troops.

If there was a shock in any way akin to hearing the news that Ukraine had invaded this corner of Russia, however, it was the recent criticism levelled by Zelensky against the UK: “We have seen throughout this war that the United Kingdom has shown real leadership... But unfortunately, the situation has slowed down.” Mild this may seem, but it is the first sign of differences between Kyiv and London since Boris Johnson nailed his colours so firmly to Ukraine’s mast in the first days of the war.

The quarrel seems to relate to an apparent ban on Ukraine using UK-supplied Storm Shadow missiles to strike targets far into Russia. Zelensky’s words may also reflect what he might see as a change in the British position, with promises – given by the former UK foreign secretary, David Cameron, and reiterated by Keir Starmer during Zelensky’s visit to Downing Street last month – now overruled by the United States.

Asked specifically about the use of Storm Shadows after his rose garden speech, the prime minister said he would not go into what he called “tactical questions”. He has also refused to comment on whether the US might have countermanded earlier UK undertakings.

The issue of what weapons Ukraine can use, and how, is an old one. But the Kursk operation, which has positioned Ukrainian troops inside Russia, has sharpened divisions specifically over strikes into Russia that find some European states, including the UK, at odds with a United States wary of a direct confrontation as it heads into a closely run presidential campaign.

Mostly behind the scenes, a battle is now raging between those who argue that Ukraine is being denied the tools to “finish the job” and others who see its Kursk operation as a step too far. In the first group are those who argue that Russia has failed to defend any of its declared “red lines” and won’t do so now either, so the risk of a wider war or of Russia resorting to nuclear weapons can safely be ignored. In the second are those who see an incursion into Russia, an attempted attack on a nuclear power station, and the use of long-range missiles that could extend such attacks far into Russia as actions that are easily capable of igniting World War Three.

Such an argument is being conducted more or less openly in strategy circles in the United States, though less so in Europe – and hardly at all in the UK. But the opposing views boil down to little more than bets on the psyche of each of the warring sides.

A more productive argument would be about the terms of a ceasefire, before anyone strikes a poorly protected nuclear power station. Alas, that is the one argument that is not being had.