For over a week, Ukrainian forces have been embedded in Russia’s Kursk Oblast. With Starmer continuing the pro-Ukrainian stance of the previous Government, how will the incursion affect the UK’s involvement in the war?
Could These Raids Destablise Russia?
As well as being the largest raid, this incursion is the first that Ukraine has openly claimed to have done with its own troops.
Previous incursions were carried out by Russian defectors, mostly organised into the ‘Freedom of Russia Legion’, an anti-Putin partisan group which aims to overthrow the Russian government. Observers speculated that Ukraine believed that these incursions would destabilise border-regions and increase the influence of anti-Putin groups.
Ukraine is not the first country to try this tactic against Russia. During the Soviet Afghan war, Mujahideen frequently raided Soviet territory, often being able to hold Soviet settlements in Tajikistan and Turkmenistan for days. This tactic was generally unsuccessful.
Soviet border regions were heavily militarised. Whilst Mujahideen may have been able to hold captured villages and sometimes defeat Soviet troops, incursions were constantly monitored and surrounded by the Soviet military. It was nearly impossible for partisans to fan out and blend in with the general population.
Previous Ukrainian incursions failed to allow partisans to enter for similar reasons. With Russia yet again declaring a “counter-terrorism regime” in Kursk and surrounding oblasts, it’s hard to imagine Ukraine being able to make contact with anti-Putin cells this time around.
Rather than increasing resistance, the main effect of Afghan incursions was to strengthen the resolve of the Soviet government. Operational intelligence for Afghan incursions was primarily provided by the Pakistani ISI. When the Soviets threatened to invade Pakistan in response, raids quickly ended.
In the aftermath, Kremlin officials have renewed threats against NATO. With threats to invade NATO nations becoming a new Russian past-time, this tactic does not appear to be working.
Ukraine’s incursion, however, is unlikely to work in encouraging partisan groups. Like in the Soviet-Afghan war, the most noticeable effect at the moment has been in increasing Russian hawkishness. If anything has the potential to destabilise Russia, it’s this.
Russian Hawkishness
This incursion into Russia, the largest carried out by Ukraine so far, is a significant embarrassment for Putin. The embarrassment is made worse by the number of prominent Russians who are publicly criticising his government.
Duma member Andrey Gurulyov claimed that the Russian military was warned of attack a month ago, but that “those above” refused to acknowledge it.
Andrey Gurulyov, who has called for the invasion of Kazakhstan, the reintroduction of Stalinist purges and the atomic annihilation of the Dutch, represents the ultranationalist and hawkish wing of Russian politics.
Demonstrated most dramatically by Wagner leader Prigozhin’s attempted coup last year, many ultranationalists feel as though Russia’s war effort is incompetently led, or being intentionally subverted by a shadowy deep-state.
Previous incursions in the summer of 2023 and the spring of 2024 saw significant criticism towards the government.
It isn’t surprising then that Putin has attempted to placate hawks following this failure by immediately calling for a response. Kremlim officials have condemned this incursion as an “escalation”.
Despite calling for an escalation, so far, Russia’s primary military response appears to be withdrawing troops from the South to deal with this threat.
Russia’s primary retaliation has been through non-military means. The Government has stated that it will move the over one hundred thousand civilians displaced by the incursion occupied territories, a violation of Article 49 of the Geneva Convention. This comes as part a broader campaign to Russify the territory.
Although the incursion is yet to inspire a direct military escalation from Russia, it appears to have strengthened Russian opposition to peace.
Dmitry Medvedev, who has become increasingly hawkish in his public statements since his resignation as Prime Minister in 2020, stated that this was “no longer” just a war to “punish the Nazis” and to “return our official territories” (the four Ukrainian Oblasts annexed by Russia in September 2022), but that it was now necessary “to go to the lands of the still existing Ukraine”.
Medvedev called for Russian troops to move into Kyiv and extinguish the “Ukrainian Reich”.
Although Medvedev threats to completely annex Ukraine have become as common place as Gurulyov’s threats to genocide the Dutch, the former President’s comments are representative of other comments made by Kremlin officials
These kind of statements make it difficult for Russia to back down on its demands for total victory in Ukraine. This appears to be his intention, with Medvedev informing “the English bastards” that “we will stop only when we consider it acceptable and profitable for ourselves”.
Russian Morale
If history is anything to go by, this incursion will likely reduce morale further..
A smaller incursion in March caused a significant drop in Russian war support, with a poll taken soon after showing that only 32% of Russian said that they would fight for their country if invaded, a dramatic drop from the 68% at the beginning of the war.
Among the reasons speculated to have been crucial to Ukraine’s success in the incursion has been the fact Russia’s border protection was primarily made up of conscripts. It is assumed that the lack of trained units on the border is due to the fact that Russia was not expecting an incursion across the border.
Despite revising conscription laws to draft hundreds of thousands of additional conscripts, the Russian government has continued to claim that it is staying true to Putin’s promise on the eve of the invasion not to use these troops in active combat.
Although significant evidence suggests that conscripts have been deployed in combat roles up to this point, the events of the last week represent the most undeniable proof to the Russian people that conscripts are involved in the war.
Soon after casualties began to be confirmed, a petition was created by mothers of Russian conscripts, asking for their children to be moved away from potential combat zones. The petition has so-far received 4,500 signatures.
This, perhaps more than the incursion itself, undermines Putin’s mandate over his people. With Russia now unable to deny that non-penal conscripts are facing direct combat, ordinary Russians are now more involved in the war than ever.
Final Thought
Analysts generally believe that the intent of this incursion was to draw pressure from the South and to weaken Russian morale. So far it appears to have been successful on both counts.
However, the success of this raid may not be all good news for Ukraine.
The idea of Russia’s government being able to compromise on the war, as suggested by former President Trump, looks increasingly unlikely. With an increasingly hardline government and an increasingly war-weary populace, the fall of Putin’s government looks to be the only route to an end to the war in Ukraine.
With the Prime Minister pledging to support Ukraine ‘as long as it takes’, increased pressure from hawks appears to be moving the Russian government towards a more uncompromising direction.
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