Ukrainians on the March
Keeping an Eye on the Kursk Oblast Offensive
Ukraine is playing offense once again. How nice it is to say that.
Just a few months ago, Ukrainians were fighting what I once called “the forgotten war” against Putin’s aggression. At that time, Trump VP hopefuls like J.D. Vance wrote New York Times guest essay opinion pieces against further Ukraine funding, and otherwise worked tirelessly to undermine the Ukrainian war effort against Russian imperialism.
In my articles then, and in my articles in the months prior, I tried to justify America’s focus on defending Ukraine. I pointed to the parallels between Ukraine’s resistance and our own almost 250 years ago (the coincidence is hard to overlook). I argued (following others, like Thomas Friedman) that the conflict between Ukraine and Russia was a critical part of a larger worldwide war against the Axis of Oppression.
Through it all, I attempted to make one simple point: we all share in the struggle of Ukrainians. Yet now is the time to share in their joy. With the help of an again incompetent Russian army, the Ukrainians have crossed the Russian border. They have advanced into the Russian Kursk region, and have officially claimed control of Sudzha, a major city in the region.
“By Wednesday,” the Associated Press reported, “Ukrainian officials said they controlled 1,000 square kilometers (386 square miles) of enemy territory.” That included, by the way, “at least 74 settlements and hundreds of Russian prisoners in the war” (emphasis mine).
Worst of all for Putin, Ukrainian forces have “destroyed a key bridge across the Seim River.” The destruction of that bridge—“a main evacuation route for civilians”— severs 27 settlements at minimum from the rest of Russia. To add insult to injury, “the Russian opposition media website Istrories said the bridge was in a ‘key logistics area of the Russian Armed Forces.’”
Doesn’t that feel good to say? The Ukranians are winning the narrative war once more. Even the Americans of the American Revolution did not deliver such an embarassing lesson to their wannabe conquerors. To the contrary, the Ukrainians have taught Putin that Russian soil can be just as vulnerable as Ukrainian soil.
The dictators and “empire-builders” of tomorrow should think long and hard about that.
However, some have perhaps rightly questioned exactly how much the “thrilling headlines” will translate to concrete strategic gains. Let’s start with the most obvious unresolved issues. First of all, these gains will not become “bargaining chips” in peace negotiations until the Ukrainians can prove they can hold onto the territory for an extended period of time. Of course, that is assuming that holding onto the territory continues to be in their strategic interest. For instance, they could eventually find better offensive opportunities within Ukraine in the weeks and months ahead.
Second, we should expect fighting to intensify in the coming days and months. And with winter approaching, we do not know for sure what course the rest of the combat in Russia will take.
All that said, the Russians are losing the narrative war right now. Too often, people on both sides of this conflict have underestimated the significance of that. They did so when the Russians took Bakhmut, and they are doing so now, when Ukranians have taken nothing less than a slice of Russia itself.
Morale—and keeping morale—wins war. The Russians know that better than anyone. The Russian author Leo Tolstoy wrote a whole long book about it. Without morale, an army—with all its great leaders, with all its great generals—is worthless. Luckily, the Ukrainians have the morale and the moral high ground. To be sure, they have great leaders like Zelenskyy to guide them, but behind that great leader is a great and resilient peoples.
How do I know this? Look at what the Ukrainians have done. The “war of attrition” has become a war of resilience. They poked a hole in Putin’s narrative bubble. They revealed (as they have before) Russia’s lingering and serious intelligence failures. They may soon cause a “crisis of confidence” about the soldiers guarding the Russian border, whether they are stationed near Kursk or not. Ukrainians have even given the Russians a small taste of what Ukraine has endured for the past 2 years.
Good for them. Every day, the Ukrainians are proving Donald Trump and J.D. Vance wrong. Wars are not won on mathematics. They are won on courage, boldness, determination, honor, and on unwavering conviction. Yet what would Donald Trump or J.D. Vance know about any of that? Nothing.
What happens now? Hard to tell. How will Putin react to the whole situation? Will he, like exiled Russian journalist Mikhail Zygar has suggested, try to take back the region by total warfare against his own land? Will he try to oust the Ukranian army by bombing civilians, even if they are Russian civilians? After all, since when has he put the interests of the Russian people over his ego and his delusions of empire?
Here is what I do know: Politicians abroad will never be able to barter away the freedom of Ukrainians. Not if the Ukrainians have any say in it.
Slava Ukraini!