Why doesn't Putin care more about Ukraine's attack into Kursk?
Why has Russia not cared more about Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk oblast? It is a question worth asking as it is one of the main reasons why Ukraine has been faring poorly in the war over the summer. As critical as I was and continue to be about the strategic rationale for pursuing offensive action by Ukraine, it is hard to argue about the tactical effectiveness the Ukrainian army showed. Still, it failed to gain anything meaningful out of that effectiveness as it is clear that Russia just is not all that bothered by the incursion. The question is why?
The best answer I can come up with is that Russia has the strategic depth it needs to not be very concerned with border incursions. If you look at a map of Russia you find that almost no big cities are closed to its border with Ukraine, except for Rostov-on-Don and Rostov is shielded by miles of occupied Ukrainian territory. Russia need not be particularly concerned with territory, it is quite comfortably the largest state in the world by area. If you have land enough not to miss it, and if the land the enemy occupies has no real population centres, industrial clusters, or significant natural resources does it really matter that the enemy holds it? Putin’s answer is clearly no.
That brings us to another way in which Ukraine is at a disadvantage to Russia in the war. Kharkiv and Kherson are not far from the front lines, and other major urban population centres like Dnipro and Zaporizhzhia while not exactly close to the fighting, are at least closer than any major Russian city. In that sense the charge that the Kursk incursion is strategically insignificant is tempered; there were no strategically important targets Ukraine could have gone for instead. It also underlines what a poor bargaining chip the occupied Kursk oblast territory makes for Ukraine. No other country on earth has as much empty woodlands as Russia, so why should it trade any valuable Ukrainian territory for unvaluable Russian land in a hypothetical negotiated peace.
That is the reason why Russia does not care: it does not need to. Zelensky has made it abundantly clear that he cannot imagine giving up Crimea or the Donbass, whereas Putin seems perfectly content with letting Ukraine control the occupied Kursk territories.
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I've always been interested in politics, economics, and the interplay between. The blog is a place for me to explore different ideas and concepts relating to economics or politics, be that national or international. The goal for the blog is to make you think; to provide new perspectives.
Written by Karl Johansson
Cover photo by Egor Kamelev from Pexels, edited by Karl Johansson
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