Is Ukraine Turning the Tide of the War?

Photo: Roman Pilipey Agence France-Presse A Soviet-designed T-72 tank operated by the Ukrainian army drives on a road in the Sumy region of Ukraine, bordering Russia, on Monday.

Lise Denis

Published at 18:00

• Europe

Since August 6, Ukraine has made a historic breakthrough in Russia, causing the flight of more than 100,000 inhabitants. Never has such a foreign incursion been made into Russian territory since the Second World War. Le Devoir spoke with two experts to better understand the scale of this operation, which extends, according to Kiev, over nearly 1000 km2.

Why did Ukraine attack the Kursk region ?

On Tuesday, kyiv declared that it did not want to “annex the territories of the Kursk region.” Rather, the goal would be to “protect the lives” of the Ukrainian people and push Moscow to negotiate a “just peace.”

The strategy is also military. By attacking the border area where the “weakest” soldiers of the Russian army are concentrated, kyiv seems to want to force Russia to redeploy its troops in northern Ukraine, to relieve the Donbass front, argues the holder of the Chair in Ukrainian Studies at the University of Ottawa, Dominique Arel. “It is clear that Ukraine’s objective is not to occupy Russia, but to force Russia to leave Ukraine in one way or another,” also indicates McGill University political science professor Maria Popova.

For Mr. Arel, it is also an “attempt to change the narrative of the war,” to show that the “momentum” is currently in Kiev’s favor. “It's humiliating for Russia,” he said.

“I think the goal was to create maximum surprise, which they [the Ukrainians] absolutely succeeded in doing, because Russia certainly did not expect this,” Popova adds. “They grossly underestimated Ukraine, […] and that’s what led them to miscalculate here.”

How is Russia reacting??

On Monday, Vladimir Putin promised to “expel” Ukrainian forces from the Kursk region. But since August 6, the Kremlin has had “no reaction,” Arel says. “The Russians are continuing to shell Ukrainian cities. […] This is not an escalation. This is what Russia has been doing systematically for months, if not years.” »

The redeployment of Russian forces from the east to northern Ukraine, hoped for by kyiv, is still awaited, even though the two experts report that the first suspicions of a movement of Russian forces have emerged today. “At the moment, the Russian state and the Russian army do not know how to respond. It is the element of surprise,” explains Ms. Popova. The Kremlin, however, shows “no indication” of a desire for peace. “A week of invasion will not bring Putin to the negotiating table,” assures the professor.

Vladimir Putin also shows, at his expense, that “when faced with a setback, he retreats,” adds the professor. The nuclear escalation so feared by the West did not happen, Mr. Arel also emphasizes, and kyiv managed to obtain the approval of Germany and the United States to use the weaponry previously supplied in this offensive.

Is Ukraine in the process of reversing the course of the war? ?

This whole “risky” strategy is “so far successful,” says Arel. But it is too early to say whether it will end in victory, both experts agree.

Russian forces do not seem to be “in their best shape,” and kyiv has “demonstrated that Russia’s military strength is a bit of a myth.” But it is not yet possible to say that the Kremlin’s army is “collapsing.” Most of the soldiers in the Kursk region are young conscripts, who are not supposed to be at the front. They could, in the coming days, be helped by seasoned soldiers who were fighting in the Donbass.

It is also unclear how long Ukrainian forces will be able to stay in the territory they currently control, Arel says. Will they be able to “dig trenches, and therefore move the front line completely inside Russia?” ? “If the military objective were to force a redeployment, among other things, that would necessarily imply a medium- to long-term presence on the part of Ukrainian troops. Whether the Ukrainians will have that capacity is something that will have to be monitored, but it could take weeks before it all becomes clearer.”

What will the consequences be within Russia ?

What seems certain, according to experts, is that Vladimir Putin’s regime is not threatened for the moment. “The regime will remain as long as there is no perception, and this is certainly not the case at the moment, that Russia is losing the war,” explains Mr. Arel, who notes however that the involvement of conscripts on this front is a “very sensitive” subject that could cause waves.

For its part, the evacuated Russian population “does not expect their government to protect them,” underlines Ms. Popova, who therefore does not foresee a “major shift in Russian public opinion, in any direction.”

With Agence France-Presse