Kursk incursion boosts Ukrainian morale after grim year

[August 21, 2024]  By Dan Peleschuk

KYIV (Reuters) - For Kyiv-area resident Olha Pavlovska, who huddles with her neighbors every week to discuss the often grim news from the front, Ukraine's shock incursion into Russia's Kursk region this month offered a rare moment of hope.

"This was a very brave and important step ... for keeping up morale in society," said Pavlovska, 51, speaking outside St Michael's Cathedral in the centre of Kyiv.

Ukrainian leaders have cast the Aug. 6 attack, the biggest invasion of Russia since World War Two, as proof that Ukraine's military can still succeed in offensive operations - and still surprise.

Kyiv's troops have captured swathes of Russian territory and soldiers to exchange for Ukrainian prisoners of war, a much-needed morale boost for a military that has not made significant gains on its own soil since late 2022.

A counteroffensive last year largely failed to recapture Russian-occupied territory, and Moscow's troops have steadily advanced in the east amid grinding fighting that has sapped Ukrainian resources.

The setbacks have fuelled creeping pessimism about the war's outcome, with 32% of Ukrainians willing to accept territorial concessions to end the war, according to a survey published last month by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, up from 10% around a year ago.

In recent days the mood has lightened, with online memes poking fun at Russia over the setback flooding Ukrainian social networks. Several Ukrainian troops Reuters spoke to near the Russian border last week were in high spirits as they returned from their combat mission inside Russia.

The offensive, which has dominated Ukrainian news bulletins, represents "a victory that we have not had for a long time," said Roman Kostenko, a lawmaker and officer in Ukraine's security service, who has participated in the operation.

"It is a success in many aspects - both internationally and for ourselves - that we seized the initiative," Kostenko told Ukrainian radio.

Kyiv's troops are nonetheless meeting resistance and taking losses, he added.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has cast the attack as a watershed that shows Kremlin threats of retaliation were a bluff and has urged Ukraine's allies to loosen curbs on using foreign-supplied weapons.

"The world sees that everything in this war depends only on courage - our courage, the courage of our partners," Zelenskiy said on Monday.

A Ukrainian serviceman patrols an area in the controlled by Ukrainian army town of Sudzha, Kursk region, Russia August 16, 2024. REUTERS/Yan Dobronosov/File Photo

Army chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said on Tuesday his forces have advanced 28-35 kilometres (17 to 22 miles) in the Kursk region while Moscow was moving some of its troops from other directions to strengthen positions there.

Ukraine has struck at least two key bridges in the region, complicating Russian efforts to repel the attack.

"This will change the situation in our favour. The question is how much," said Oleksandr Viktorovych, 42, a financial analyst whose brother is serving in eastern Ukraine.

"On the other hand, we all need to understand that any kind of offensive operation - no matter how well it's planned - means losses."

DIFFICULTIES AHEAD

Others have been less enthusiastic about Ukraine committing valuable resources at a time when its sprawling eastern front is under serious strain from a Russian onslaught.

Yaroslav Mandel, a war veteran who signed up to fight Russian forces after their first invasion in 2014, described the Kursk incursion as a dangerous operation that could contribute to crumbling defenses in the east.

"What they've done is a show," he said.

Moscow's forces are bearing down on the key eastern transit hub of Pokrovsk, where officials say up to 600 people are fleeing each day with Russian troops just 10 km from the outskirts.

Russia is also pressing on the eastern city of Toretsk, the fall of which would bring Moscow's guns closer to another key city and supply route for much of Ukraine's forces in the eastern Donbas region.

Moscow claimed to have captured two nearby towns this week.

"The strategy must be to defend our country over there, in the Donbas," said Mandel. "That's the first priority."

(Additional reporting by Vitalii Hnidyi; Editing by Conor Humphries)

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