Ukraine offense spotlights Russia’s border vulnerability

Kyiv has shown no signs of pulling back, although the incursion’s ultimate objectives remain unclear. However, the push’s success so far relied on months of planning, a Ukrainian soldier told the BBC. A former Russian soldier that spoke to Russian independent media outlet Important Stories said Ukrainian troops have been carrying out reconnaissance in Kursk for almost six months unhindered. “For those on the front line, this breakthrough is not a surprise at all. They’ve long known that something like this would start sooner or later; it was just a matter of time,” the Russian soldier said.

It’s too early to say whether the incursion into Kursk will remain a success story for Ukraine, analysts said — and Kyiv hasn’t been entirely transparent as to its objectives for the attack. But Ukraine has effectively demonstrated “Russia’s failure of intelligence and weakness along its border,” wrote Daniel Fried, former US Ambassador to Poland, for The Atlantic Council. “The attack thus upends the Kremlin narrative of inevitable Russian victory,” he added.

Ukrainian troops were able to easily enter Kursk “with little resistance,” one soldier told the BBC: “The element of surprise worked.” The war has left the border vulnerable, since troops are deployed in Ukraine, one analyst noted. “This war has left Russia’s borders weak, the army engaged in Ukraine and not immediately available to defend border regions, and FSB [Russia’s Federal Security Service] border troops not supported,” Dara Massicot, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote on X. “The Russian system’s instinct will be to overcorrect and swing harshly at Kursk.”