After retaking Kursk, Putin is more ready for peace

By expelling Ukrainian troops from the Kursk region, Russia ended the largest incursion into its territory since World War II and at the same time removed another obstacle to reaching a peace agreement that Moscow was reluctant to conclude while enemy troops were present on its soil.

A day after Moscow announced that the Kursk operation was over, President Vladimir Putin declared a unilateral three-day ceasefire to mark the 80th anniversary of the victory of the Soviet Union and its allies in World War II.

Two Russian sources told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity, that it was not acceptable for the Kremlin to resolve the war while Ukrainian troops were in Kursk.

A little over two years after the Russian invasion in 2022, Ukraine launched its boldest attack yet on August 6, breaking through the Russian border into the Kursk region, supported by drones and heavy Western weaponry.

Ukrainian forces claimed control of nearly 1.400 square kilometers of the Kursk region at the height of the offensive, but the attack was extremely costly for Kiev.

Russia has since seized about 2.000 square kilometers of territory in Ukraine and now controls a piece of land almost the size of the US state of Pennsylvania, according to Reuters.

Some analysts believe that the redirection of Ukrainian forces to Kursk actually enabled the rapid advance of Russian troops, mainly in eastern Ukraine.

"Essentially, Ukraine traded the territory it valued most - its own - for territory it did not value and could not hold forever," Christopher McAllion, a fellow at the Washington-based Defense Priorities organization, told the British agency.

Ukraine, which has been in retreat for weeks but still claims to have active forces in Kursk, says the incursion has deterred Russia from making further gains on parts of the eastern front, forcing Moscow to commit troops elsewhere. Kiev said its goals also included securing the Sumy border region and gaining territory that could be used for swaps in future peace talks.

These negotiations, encouraged by American "shuttle diplomacy," are now underway, but without the negotiating trump card that Ukraine had been counting on.

But huge differences remain and could derail Donald Trump's peace efforts. If the talks fail, Russian forces will simply continue fighting, one of the sources said.

The General Staff of the Ukrainian Army denies that hostilities in the Kursk region have ended and announced that the Ukrainian defensive operation there is still ongoing.

In recent weeks, Russia has stepped up attacks on Sumy, across the border from Kursk, local officials said. A Russian missile strike on the Sumy region on April 14 killed 35 people. Russia said it was targeting a gathering of Ukrainian soldiers.

Despite doubts in Ukraine about whether the Kursk offensive was worth the effort, President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged that Ukrainian forces are now active in Russia's Belgorod region, also on the border, describing it as an effort to protect cities on the Ukrainian side.

Russia occupies parts of the territory across the border from Belgorod in the Kharkiv region. Under US proposals, Ukraine could regain full control of its territory in Kharkiv as part of a peace agreement, while Russia would retain control of slightly less than a fifth of Ukraine's territory.

Bitka for Kursk

For the Kremlin, the Ukrainian incursion into Kursk - the scene of the largest tank battle in history between Soviet forces and Nazi Germany in 1943 - was an embarrassment.

The announcement of victory over Ukrainian troops comes ahead of the 80th anniversary of the Soviet Union's victory over the Nazis on May 9. It allows Putin to boast about the victory in front of guests, including Chinese President Xi Jinping and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Despite previous warnings that an attack might follow, Russian forces were surprised by the Ukrainian attack, Russian sources told Reuters.

Russian officials at the time spoke of chaos as Russian civilians fled eastward and Russian border guards and the army tried to fight off small Ukrainian units that, using Western weapons and vehicles, were rapidly advancing along the rural roads of Kursk.

At least 120.000 people were evacuated, and a visibly irritated Putin publicly reprimanded the then-governor of Kursk, Alexei Smirnov, who was arrested earlier this month on charges of embezzling funds intended for border defense. He denies the charges.

When Reuters journalists visited Kursk last month, the scale of the Russian military operation was striking: tanks, missile systems and thousands of soldiers were on the move, while civilians, to the sounds of air raid sirens, spoke of fears of drone and missile attacks.

North Korean shells and troops helped Russia in the Battle of Kursk. Putin personally thanked North Korean leader Kim Jong Un yesterday for the help of his soldiers.

The Russian Defense Ministry says Ukrainian forces suffered more than 76.000 killed and wounded soldiers and lost more than 412 tanks in Kursk. Ukraine claims that Russia suffered more than 62.000 killed and wounded during the operations. Neither side has released official figures for its own losses.

Offensive

As Ukrainian forces rushed to expand their territory in Kursk in August, Russia hastily sent units to the area to slow the advance and prevent Ukrainian troops from reaching the Kurchatov nuclear power plant, which supplies a significant portion of southern Russia with electricity.

Within a month, the front stabilized, and Russia was able to launch a counterattack.

“There were probably a lot of very embarrassed Russian generals, but the Ukrainian incursion was completely chaotic - just crazy, frankly,” David J. Backes, professor of warfare in the modern world at King's College London, told Reuters.

"Russia has a long history of successful defense, but unlike more fortunate countries that can rely on geography, Russia usually has to defend itself with human lives and space," he added.

Russian forces then gradually began to break down Ukrainian defenses, while Moscow deployed thousands of fiber-optic drones, which are significantly more difficult to jam than other types of drones, according to Russian and Western sources.

Within three months, Russia managed to halve the territory under Ukrainian control, and by February 6, the area held by Ukraine had fallen to 428 square kilometers.

On the third anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine, as Russian forces were attacking, Putin made a surprise visit to Kursk in military uniform, ordering the top military leadership to continue the offensive and suggesting that Russia should establish a buffer zone along the Ukrainian border.

In March, Ukraine lost more than 300 square kilometers of the territory it held in Kursk.

Russian General Valery Gerasimov told Putin on Sunday that Russia had cleared Kursk when the last Ukrainian units were driven out of the village of Gornal, near the border.

He noted that Ukraine deployed 60.000 troops to Kursk during the height of the operation, weakening its other forces, and praised North Korean troops who, he said, fought "shoulder to shoulder" with Russian comrades in Kursk.

Gerasimov also told Putin that, in accordance with his orders, Russian forces were “continuing” to form a buffer zone and had seized 90 square kilometers of territory in Ukraine’s Sumy region.

Ukrainian officials previously announced that Russian assault groups were present in the Sumy region.