Kyiv’s military operation into Russia just over two weeks ago caught everyone off guard, including Moscow.
ADVERTISEMENTOver two weeks into Ukraine’s surprise incursion into the Russian region of Kursk, its forces show no sign of stopping.
Kyiv’s military operation into Russia on August 6 caught everyone off guard, including Moscow, observers, and Ukraine’s Western allies.
Analysts at the United States-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said that operational security was crucial for the offensive.
“I think Ukraine learned from its experience planning the 2023 counteroffensive last year, because there was a lot of messaging for that and it really allowed the West, but also Russia to anticipate where it was going to attack and when,” said ISW Russia deputy team lead Karolina Hird.
She believes that seeing the vulnerability of their own border could change the Russian people's perspective on the war.
“There are so many nuances that right now seem very fresh, but I think will generate discontent in the long term.”
Hird said the fact that the “border is not impermeable” will change the way that the war is “felt by Russian domestic populists, who were largely apathetic towards it in the past”.
Kyiv claims to have seized over a thousand square kilometres in the Kursk region, surpassing what Russia has captured in Ukraine over eight months.
Yet the term "war" remains banned in the border region, as it does throughout the rest of Russia.