Ukrainian forces advanced into Russia through the Kursk region just across the country’s border with Ukraine. The push into Russia came as a surprise to U.S. officials, as reported by The New York Times, and offered Ukraine a win.
Ukrainian troops met some resistance, though they didn’t suffer considerable casualties during the move. According to the BBC, this is the most significant incursion into Russia since its invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Previously, Ukrainian troops briefly crossed into Russia in May 2023 and in March 2024, the Times reported.
What happened in Ukraine’s incursion into Russia and why is it significant?
The incursion occurred in secrecy, with Russian troops reportedly unable to detect the extent of the offensive until it was already happening. Kursk had been an important location for Russia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, serving as the base from which 2,000 attacks had been launched just this summer, per BBC.
“Artillery, mortars, drones. We also record missile strikes, and each such strike deserves a fair response,” Zelenskyy said.
Kursk also proved to be an easier point of entry for Ukrainian troops, Brady Africk, an American analyst, told The Times. “Russia’s fortifications in Kursk are less dense than in other areas where Russian forces have built formidable defenses, such as in the south,” he noted.
According to The Times, the incursion risked allowing Russia to push Ukrainian troops back and therefore gain more ground in their advance into the Donetsk region of Eastern Ukraine, should the operation have been unsuccessful. Success would mean stretching “the positions of the enemy, to inflict maximum losses and to destabilise the situation in Russia as they are unable to protect their own border,” a senior Ukrainian official told the AFP news agency, per BBC.
With the operation shrouded in secrecy, news of the advance last Wednesday came as a surprise. U.S. officials said they were not briefed about the operation in advance and to this point, only high-ranking officials have been informed on Ukraine’s goals, The Times reported. Zelenskyy only publicly addressed the operation on Saturday night.
In May, President Joe Biden advised that Ukraine limit their use of American weapons in Russia to “self-defense” strikes. According to the Pentagon’s deputy press secretary, Sabrina Singh, “they are taking actions to protect themselves from attacks.”
According to KATU, nearly 120,000 Russians have evacuated the Kursk region due to the incursion.