Kyiv’s Kursk miscalculation Looking back at a daring but failed incursion into Russia and what it cost Ukraine
A year ago this week, Ukrainian troops crossed into Russia’s Kursk region, beginning what would become one of the war’s fiercest and most prolonged battles, lasting more than seven months. Ukraine’s dramatic early gains eventually gave way to defeat, with long-term consequences reverberating across the armed forces. In part, this outcome was predetermined: the Kursk plan’s political and strategic aims proved naive, and the drawbacks outweighed the benefits even at the planning stage. Errors after the campaign began also mattered, preventing Ukrainian forces from fighting on favorable terms and from establishing a reliable defense of their foothold in Kursk.
In the end, both sides suffered heavy losses. For Ukraine, the losses proved more critical given shortages of personnel and heavy weapons. While the incursion into Kursk may have prevented Moscow from deploying major reserves in its Donbas offensive, it appears to have either hurt Ukraine’s position where Russia was already advancing before August 6, 2024, or had no effect at all. Such large-scale military actions will ultimately determine the outcome of the war.
What was the goal of Ukraine’s offensive in Sudzha? What did the Ukrainian Army achieve in the Kursk region?
To understand the objectives behind the Kursk incursion, it’s worth recalling the operational and strategic conditions across the front in summer 2024:
- After Ukraine’s unsuccessful summer–autumn 2023 offensive in Zaporizhzhia, near Bakhmut, and on the eastern-bank Dnipro foothold, commanders withdrew some participating units into reserve status.
- By October 2023, Russian forces moved to exploit a numerical superiority from a successful recruiting drive, sending newly formed units composed of contract “volunteers” to quieter sectors while concentrating seasoned formations — also reinforced through mobilization and contracted personnel — in central Donbas.
- Fighting for Avdiivka raged from October 2023 to February 2024. Ukraine committed reserves but could not hold the city. When the front seemed to stabilize west of Avdiivka in the spring, Ukraine again pulled back several brigades.
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- Russian troops launched a new attack in May 2024. Elements of the reconstituted Leningrad Military District — regrouping after their 2022 defeat in the Kharkiv campaign — again crossed the border near Kharkiv, having staged in the Kursk region. The attack stalled: Ukrainian reserves halted the advance just 5–7 kilometers (3.1–4.4 miles) inside Ukrainian territory, despite early Russian gains. Ukrainian military communications at the time indicate their intelligence had detected the buildup in advance.
- At the time, pro-war bloggers wrote that Russian forces sought to redirect Ukrainian reserve formations away from the principal theater of operations in central Donbas.
- During Russia’s May 2024 push near Kharkiv, Ukraine began repositioning reserves to the northeast, specifically transferring forces to Sumy for defensive preparations against potential renewed Russian incursions.
- However, Russian attacks near Kharkiv proved a diversion: the main blow fell west of Avdiivka. Russian forces breached Ukrainian brigade defenses near Ocheretyne and drove toward the strategic Pokrovsk urban area. At the same time, another Russian grouping intensified operations in southern Donbas. By early August 2024, the situation on these fronts had become critical for Ukraine.
Planning for the Kursk strike likely began before Russia’s May 2024 attack near Kharkiv. Ukraine waited until Leningrad Military District formations were locked in heavy fighting north of Kharkiv and in Vovchansk, then struck to the west, where Russian rear units — largely conscript‑heavy regiments from the same district — were weaker.
The plan and its problems
Strategic, political, and battlefield considerations shaped Ukraine’s plan in Kursk. After the incursion began, Kyiv revised its official (and not-so-official) aims multiple times.
- Pro-Kremlin Z‑bloggers prone to alarmism promptly framed Ukraine’s objective as seizing the Kursk nuclear power plant to trade for the Russian‑occupied Zaporizhzhia plant — an unrealistic aim absent a collapse of Russia’s military command. Nevertheless, the form of Ukraine’s advance — prioritizing a breakthrough toward the Rylsk–Lgov highway — suggests Kyiv viewed the plan as achievable. In the end, Russia’s chain of command held.
- President Volodymyr Zelensky repeatedly said occupying part of Kursk was intended as leverage for a future swap for Russian‑held Ukrainian territory. However, from the outset of Ukraine’s advance, it became clear the Kremlin would not agree to any exchange. After Ukraine’s defeat in the battle for Sudzha and Russia’s incursion into the Sumy region, the idea effectively died.
- According to official statements, Kyiv assumed Russia would divert troops from its central and southern Donbas offensives to Kursk. If that expectation guided planning, it was naive: the Kremlin retained ample uncommitted reserves outside the Donetsk fighting, and they formed the backbone of the force that advanced on Sudzha. Moscow redeployed the 155th Marine Brigade from near Vuhledar to a rear “forest area” before Ukraine’s Sudzha push, then sent the 106th Airborne Division from the Siversk sector, with other units arriving from the Dnipro grouping and the Kharkiv region.
- Russia may have earmarked those troops for another offensive that never materialized, but Ukraine ultimately thinned multiple fronts at once. As a result, it failed both to hold its bridgehead on Russian soil and to blunt Russia’s advance in Ukraine. Kyiv also assembled about 15 brigades — some of its most capable — to sustain the Kursk effort, sending the 47th Mechanized Brigade, equipped with Abrams tanks and Bradley IFVs, from south of Pokrovsk to Sudzha.
How the invasion unfolded
- At the decisive moment of Russia’s southern Donbas offensive, Ukraine had no reserves available. As a result, Kyiv lost its “fortresses” — the cities of Vuhledar and Kurakhove and the town of Velyka Novosilka — as well as a broad area between Donetsk’s western outskirts and the Pokrovsk–Velyka Novosilka line, encompassing dozens of settlements.
- Russian forces also advanced on supporting fronts, reaching the western edge of Pokrovsk and the Dnipropetrovsk boundary, crossing the Oskil River near Kupiansk, and capturing parts of the “fortress” cities of Toretsk and Chasiv Yar north of Donetsk.
- Ukraine’s early gains in Kursk were short‑lived. In the first two months, Ukrainian forces did not secure their flanks, likely aiming instead to drive as far as possible into Russian territory. They failed to take Korenevo in the west or advance toward Bila in the east. As a result, the salient was squeezed from both sides: to the west, Russian troops had broken through to the Snagost River in the fall; to the east, they reached Sudzha’s southern outskirts along the Psel River. After Russian forces captured Sverdlykove, 7 kilometers (4.3 miles) west of the Sudzha–Sumy highway, the Ukrainian contingent’s fate in Kursk was effectively sealed. Russia deployed its “Rubikon” drone brigade, cutting off resupply along the Sudzha–Sumy highway. Many Ukrainian units abandoned their equipment and withdrew on foot, although the main force avoided encirclement.
- Ukraine tied down large Russian formations around its bridgehead in the Kursk region for seven months. But Kyiv also committed some of its most capable brigades near Sudzha. Those units might have been used more effectively — for example, by withdrawing from the bridgehead as soon as Russia launched its counteroffensive in fall 2024.
- Russia’s Donbas offensive continues. The southern part of the region, including Ukraine’s “fortresses,” has been captured. Moscow now appears to be targeting the Kramatorsk–Sloviansk area in the north. Momentum favors Russia, and Ukraine must claw it back. Otherwise, given Russia’s numerical advantage, Ukraine risks defeat.
What comes next?
For Ukraine, the main outcome of the Kursk operation is today’s 50‑kilometer (31-mile) active front in the Sumy region. At the height of the Kursk incursion, Ukrainian troops were advancing along a front roughly twice as long. With Russia holding a numerical advantage, opening new active fronts is now disadvantageous for Kyiv. After the defeat at Sudzha, Ukraine established strong defenses in Sumy — aided by shortening the front — and is now counterattacking.
However, in northern Donbas and beyond, Ukraine’s defenses are eroding due to manpower shortages, leaving the stretch from Dnipropetrovsk to Chasiv Yar in urgent need of reinforcement.
As of late summer 2025, Ukraine has reconstituted its reserves, notably by refitting brigades depleted during the incursion into and withdrawal from Kursk. Kyiv may seek to commit these formations to a new offensive, despite having fewer uncommitted forces than in 2024, in the hope of a better‑formulated plan.
Meduza’s Razbor (“Explainers”) team
Translation by Kevin Rothrock