In August, the Ukrainian armed forces managed to pull off an incursion into Russian territory. Unlike previous forays executed by small paramilitary groups, the incursion into Russia's Kursk region appears to be more strategic and serious. Russia was forced to retreat, leaving behind a lot of conscripts who were taken as prisoners of war by the Ukrainian army. While the operation seems to be slowing down, its long lasting consequences are still not clear. Regional governments in border regions of Russia are trying to maintain the facade of life as usual while evacuating people from the affected area.
The Kremlin, meanwhile, is looking for a way to counteract the enemy's operation and recover from such a reputational blow for a nuclear state.
This transcript was not edited prior to publication:
Alex Gabuev. Welcome to Carnegie Political Podcast. My name is Aleksandr Gabuev. I'm director of Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin. This podcast is out of vacation period. We were making a break in August. And what a difference a month can make. Before we were going on vacation in July, the war in Ukraine was trending in a sad, predictable direction where Russia was grinding in and gnawing through Ukrainian defences in the east of the country, and it seemed that it's a predictable, negative trajectory for Kyiv. But then, in the beginning of August, Ukraine, a non-nuclear state, has suddenly invaded a nuclear-superpower Russia and managed to capture part of Russian territory in Kursk region and keep it for a month now and counting. So, what does this new twist in the tragic war between Russia and Ukraine mean for the trajectory of the conflict? And what are the broader implications? And what does it tell us about the nature of the stability of Vladimir Putin's regime in Russia? To unpack these questions, I will be helped by two terrific guests, my colleague, Dara Massicot, who is a senior fellow at Carnegie Endowment who worked in the US government and RAND corporations before. Welcome back to this podcast, Dara.
Dara Massicot. Thank you.
Alex. And Alexey Gusev, who is an independent researcher, and he has written a terrific piece on the aftermath of Ukraine's Kursk incursion and the workings of the local governments in Russia. Welcome, Alexey.
Alexey Gusev. Thank you, Alexander. Nice to hear you.
Alex. Let's start with you, Dara. I think that the Ukrainian incursion into Kursk was unexpected by many, including many of our colleagues. If anything, this horrible war is teaching us as analysts, is really humility. Judging by what we know by now, how would you define the goals that Kyiv set for this military operation?
Dara. Well, thanks. So Ukrainian leaders have offered a few explanations and a few different objectives for this. The first being to capture Russian prisoners of war, to have an exchange fund to get Ukrainian prisoners of war back from captivity. This is happening already. Secondly, I think there was a hope to divert attention from other parts of the frontline inside occupied Ukraine that are under significant pressure, particularly in Donetsk. And then also, I think this could be considered as a bargaining chip. I know our colleague, Michael Kofman and Rob Lee have said that maybe it's an insurance policy, whether that's to negotiate with the Kremlin in the future or to set some kind of conditions in advance of an election here. And then also, I think another aspect of this is that it changes the conversations and changes the discussions in Ukraine itself, where it has been a morale boost and it has you ensured that this is not a hardening into a stalemate on the front line and slipping from international news coverage.
Alex. What do we mean by insurance policy? Mike's and Rob's point was that they want to ensure that if Trump administration is elected and Kyiv is pushed into negotiation, they have some assets to trade. Is that correct?
Dara. Ye, I think that's the point that he was making. you know I think it's also important to distinguish here you know between the audacity and the bravery of this operation to do something so unexpected, which Ukrainian forces have in abundance. It's very clear that they have that with the second part, which is what is the ability to hold and maintain that territory over time, which is a resource-based question and resources at this point are unfortunately not as abundant.
Alex. And can you walk us through the elements of success on the Ukrainian side, like what was so successful and what makes the analysts just over the moon, like some of them, about the operational discipline in this operation and what are the gains that Ukrainians have achieved so far, measure against the goals that you just outlined?
Dara. Sure. So, with the objectives that we just talked about, the POW aspect of this prisoner of war aspect has been successful in terms of getting Ukrainian POWs back. Ukrainian forces surprised Russian forces that were not particularly dense in terms of guarding the border. In the early weeks, they were able to capture hundreds, I suspect, in total, Russian prisoners, whether they were conscripts, whether they were border guards or contract service personnel, there have already been large POW exchanges and the Kremlin has worked very quickly to get the conscripts in particular back. This is a very sensitive point for Putin and I'm you know curious if Alexey agrees. The morale boost happened. They were they were proud that they did it. That happened, it's still it's still happening, but of course it's dependent on what comes next. If this operation, the Russian forces can push it back, and at the same time, Pokrovsk is facing a lot of pressure down in Donetsk, that morale high could shift to a morale low coming up. and We don't know yet how it's going to work, but that's though there's many different contingencies that I can operate this point in time. I would say that there's many more upsides to other things that Ukraine is doing simultaneously right now with their drone strikes on Russian airfields and regeneration sites inside occupied Ukraine that are having a lot of impact. Russian aircraft that carry glide bombs, which are very dangerous for the front line, have had to constantly shift and disperse, and that's having an overall suppressing effect on how many sorties that they can do. Long story short, that aspect has been quite successful in the last couple months.
Alex. And then how can you explain the significant or spectacular collapse of the Russian defence lines on border between Kursk and Sy region?
Dara. Well, obviously I want to hear what Alexey's read on this is, but my reaction, the main theory that I'm working with here is that the Kremlin did not asse that Kyiv would be so bold as to invade them. Certainly not with the number of units and the units that they used, pulling them up and doing something like this, even though there were limited raids a few months ago by paramilitary organizations. This is why that area was very lightly manned. The Russian command, they assed risk in this area, guarded very lightly by conscripts, border guard, Akhmat group. That's one explanation, just kind of the hubris and the assumption that they would never do this. But what's really surprising to me from a bureaucratic perspective is that this particular region was put on an elevated status, like an emergency status two years ago when the war began, with curfews, patrols, territorial defence groupings, in order to defend this region, much of that falls on the local government, FSB border guards, Rossgvardia police, and it seems like not much was done, despite and supposed to be thinking through these things and having a contingency plan in place. And to end it, the Russian forces were surprised for the first couple weeks. And now their response is slowly moving into place, whether that's through drones or first-person munitions. So, I think we're now starting to see the Russian response begin.
Alex. Alexey, how do you explain all the inconsistency in preparedness of the Russian security agencies that Dara just talked about? So indeed, it's one of the border regions, the level of alert is up, like there are all these Ukrainian groups or the so-called Russian legions, Russians fighting for Ukraine equipped, trained, supplied by GUR, the Ukrainian military intelligence. So that's the routine. And then Ukrainians managed to amass a lot of troops, storm through the border, overwhelm the kontraktniks, the conscripts that are there. And it just like goes very smoothly for them. What is the nature of this collapse of kind of let's unpack the military security side of it first.
Alexey. As for the military issues, I don't think I would explain more than Dara already done, but I will try to explain it from a different point of view, I would call it public administration point of view. And I think it explains a lot, especially in Kursk region. There are a few reasons and for this situation, for this lack of preparedness, for this lack of readiness. First reason is more or less obvious for those who observe the Russian internal politics. It is the approach to pretend that everything is okay. Everything is normal. This approach dominates not only in Russian propaganda, but it also dominates in the mindset of local authorities, unfortunate for the inhabitants of Kursk region. And especially in Kursk region, there will be local governor’s elections next weekend. And the acting head of the region, Alexey Smirnov, I think he was literally the last person interested in making visible preparations for the potential incursion. It was way more natural strategy for him to pretend that normal life could continue, rather than to discuss with Kursk citizens how to protect them and where to construct bomb shelters. I wouldn't use the word funny, it's a tragicomical story how they call the bomb shelters, they are called “safety buildings”. And in the local officials’ Telegram channels, there are news about new “safety building” constructed. And of course, this is a pure example of this normalization language that dominates not only propaganda, but also the mindset of officials in Russian regions. The second reason is less obvious, so and it's the difference between two neighbouring regions, Kursk and Belgorod. Belgorod was attacked many times last year, but Belgorod has a way more competent local team of local administration, headed by a governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov. And there is a very visible difference between the two governors, Gladkov, who is way more prepared for any emergency and who is very efficient at attracting help and support, especially financial support from the federal government. And what is also very important from local major employer, from local major company, Metalinvest, which has assets both in Kursk and in Belgorod. But in Belgorod, even before the war, it was funny that the local officials, municipal officials from the Metalinvest, iron ore mine in in Kursk were on best practice trips to the neighbouring region of Belgorod to see how local administration in Belgorod is preparing infrastructure, not for the war, but for preparation of the war, logistical issues, for military, and kind of what happened before in winter 2022. So, I think that it is also an example, an illustration of fragility of the original power vertical, because we see how in one region it could be less efficient than in the neighbouring. I don't know if the GUR was aware of this difference between the efficiency of local administration, but if they were, then of course it was the very smart way choose the direction. Again, I don't want to use the word smart in this context because it's also about tragedy. I think I'm done with the with the answer to this question because two main reasons are first this normalization pattern, normalization approach. And second is these cracks in the foundation of the original power vertical. And unfortunately for the inhabitants of Kursk region, these cracks in their region, are deeper than in Belgorod.
Alex. Throughout the war, there was all the time talk about the incompetence on the Russian side, be it military leadership, civilian leadership, maybe with exception of the Central Bank who did a marvellous job of saving the Russian economy from the first wave of sanctions. There were major collapses and mistakes made by all parts of the Putin's war machine. But as Dara has written and some other colleagues have written, time and time again, the Russian system adapts and gets better. It learns from mistakes and it's like a slow, painful process. The evacuation effort from the region occupied by in Kursk area by Ukrainian armed forces is something where we see a lot of kind of incompetence. A month into the hostilities on Russian soil, can we see, Alexey, that the regional government is adapting, it's acting better, it's better at relief effort and the messaging part?
Alexey. I would say that this adaptation process is very fragmented, because on the one hand we can see the signs of weak response to the initial shock. For example, from the first days of the invasion in Kursk region from Ukraine, the number of vehicles in trades going from Kursk to Moscow were increased significantly. So that the people were able to buy tickets and the price for the ticket was the same. There was no deficiency. it was like for regular train, it was about 2,000 rubbles, which is not that high, even for a rather poor Kursk region. The people who wanted to evacuate themselves from regional capital to Сentral Russia, they were free to do it. And again, the logistical support was there from the very beginning, which is for me was quite a surprise. But I realized that it happened also because the former Kursk governor is right now the head of Ministry of Transportation and maybe if not that coincidence, I'm not sure how many days would it take for the Russian transportation authorities to make this decision, to make it happen. But it really happened rather quickly and this I think is a positive example of adaptation. And the negative example of adaptation is again this, what I already mentioned, bomb shelters, because I checked today in the Telegram channel of Kursk governor, and he has acknowledged that only 36 out of 60 bomb shelters were constructed. And his elections in like five days or something. In terms of safety, in terms of trying to keep the citizens, the inhabitants of the region safe, I think it's not that adaptable. So, the adaptation is not as quick, not as effective.
Alex. Thank you. Indeed, bardak [“a mess” in Russian] is inevitable by any major disaster, be it a natural disaster or catastrophe unleashed by the war. Alexey, I think that there is a lot of narratives coming out of Kyiv, first and foremost. We've seen Mykhailo Podolyak, senior advisor to the Head of the President's Office in Ukraine, saying in very early days of the invasion of Kursk region, that part of the aims is to bring the war back where it originated, to deliver the message to the ordinary Russians so that it will unleash some form of backlash from ordinary citizens against the Kremlin, against the perpetrator of this horrible war, so that ordinary Russians will feel themselves the tragedy and horror that Ukrainians have been going through, well some of them since 2014 when the war really started in the Donbas and some of them all over the country most recently since Russia's full-scale invasion. The theory of the case is that by bringing war back to Russia, inflicting pain on Russia, including on civilian population, will lead to Vladimir Putin's either ultimate demise at the hands of angry Russians or at least will cause significant strains. So you are very familiar with the situation in the border regions that are witnessing Ukrainian retaliatory shelling, where these groups trained by Ukrainians are coming into that. So, do we see that this theory is materializing that people in the border regions are more skeptical towards the war and supporting the war effort less? Or is it neutral or is it the opposite? What's happening there?
Alexey. Thank you for this question. I think it is one of the most interesting and strategically important questions, and I would try to answer it so in in in several parts. Before the incursion in Kursk region, I would say quite the opposite. So out of the three options, mentioned by you in the end of your question. It was quite the opposite because paradoxically support for the war, for the for the “special military operation”, I'm sorry, in in Russian you can’t use this word.
Alex. Alexey, we are allowed to call it war, and we should.
Alexey. Okay, but the question to the citizens, if you are a sociologist and if you are doing a poll, you can ask only about the support for “the special military operation”. And the support for the special operation is higher in regions close to the front line, to the border. Last year, there was a special report by the “Chronicles” Project. They took the three bordering regions, not only Kursk and Belgorod, but also Bryansk. These are the three regions with the Red Alert regime, what Dara mentioned previously. And it was noticeably higher than the national average. National average is about 60%. And it is 70% in Belgorod, 77% in Kursk and 66% in Bryansk region. But that was last year. The explanation is the psychology of the civilian population during the conflict. So, to back the side that appears stronger and closer, and which is nearby, which is your government, not some RDK or other paramilitary groups that entered Belgorod region last year. For the local people in these frontline areas the Russian propaganda thesis of “otherwise Ukraine or NATO would have attacked first” looks very convincing so it's like a self-fulfilling prophecy, right? And, I would add that these are the most conservative regions in terms of their attitudes. Because 30 years ago, these regions were leaders in voting against Yeltsin, they preferred the communist Zyuganov. And I think this is an interesting comparison because these are the so-called red belt regions and they are really they supported the idea of Russia becoming a great superpower like USSR before it was trendy, right? They were in this communist narrative and right now this former KPRF [Russian communist party] narrative is the mainstream narrative in Russia. I would say that these regions have this inner belief of support from a strong power. And of course, what is interesting right now is how this situation will evolve after they realize that this power is not that strong. Even one month is not enough to calculate. Even one month is not enough to understand how this support would deteriorate. But the initial support was even higher than in the other parts of Russia. It won't be so easy to undermine it by even such a strong assault that we saw in Kursk region, even 100,000 people who were evacuated. Of course, this is not a normal situation for Kursk. But now, the federal government tries to solve this issue simply with money. Maybe you've heard that last week, I think it was 15 billion rubbles, which is approximately 160 million dollars were allocated for the support of Kursk region and some of this money will be spread among the refugees, among people who were evacuated. Let’s see how the initial narrative of “we are with this strong power” will evolve. It's probably just the beginning of the story, not the end. If I may add one thing regarding the public opinion in Kursk, based on a story from volunteers who helped distribute humanitarian aid among refugees. That's I think a very illustrative example that people initially gathered around in the universities and in church, which had some previous volunteer experience and there was a passionate desire to help refugees, to help to distribute humanitarian aid, collected from their neighbours, not centralized aid from Moscow. The story is that the Sberbank debit card was blocked because too many people sent remittances to it. And it's a very good example of how in the initial stage Russian government, because Russian system, not just government, but system, in this case banking system, is not adapting, but the volunteers are still willing to help and not just help people, but to help the local government. And this is very important, even despite the problems, even despite the obstacles and barriers, and despite the initial bardak, people are really willing to support their neighbours. And I think from this point of view, the Ukrainian logic that it will make this discord stronger is not correct. So, the people are really willing to help, and it mobilizes people not to go to the front line, but to help the refugees. And this is one of the observations that I must share, because it's very illustrative of how this assault, Ukrainian assault, may lead to paradoxical and unexpected results rather than the desired undermining the support for Putin and for the special military operation.
Alex. I think that it's logical to expect that when people encounter the war, they in the Russian case, since the society is so atomized and nobody's allowed to really discuss anything other than praise it due to active repression machine, when people encounter the negative consequences, if they are not anti-war and critical towards the government, they naturally tend to side more with Russia, because they have been affected by the enemy, somebody they know has been killed or there is a neighbouring building that has been destroyed. And the process of connecting the dots that, “oh, our government started something in our name a couple of years ago, which is horrible, and this is why this is a retaliation”, is complicated for many people. I think that the Russians, the Kremlin rulers entertain the same approach that, “oh, we just inflict a lot of pressure on the civilian population in Ukraine, and then they will say enough is enough. Let's talk to the Russians compromise and put pressure on Zelensky government”. Instead, it's only boosting support for Ukrainian armed forces. And every time something horrible happens, like this Russian barbaric bombardment of the Ukrainian Children's Hospital recently in Kyiv, like all the campaigns with donations for military units and drones, like stuff that Ukrainians collect and then this collection period slows down because well people are not earning enough, there are a lot of constraints. All these campaigns reach their goal immediately, because people go and say, “you know what Russia, we're going to support our defenders”. We'll see how that evolves both in bordering regions and in Russia overall. But let's zoom out for a finish and see more on a strategic picture on this war. Dara, you mentioned that bold and successful incursion into Kursk region might influence the Eastern Front which has been the major axis of actions throughout the year. So, what's happening there?
Dara. Well, I think that was the hope of deploying brigade units up to Kursk. But unfortunately, the Russians have been very clear that they're not taking the bait. And they have not diverted a lot of forces away from the main line in Donetsk. I think for them, based on where their focus of activity is right now, the main effort remains Donetsk, in particular a town named Pokrovsk and a few others around it, like Toretsk, Vuhledar. The Russians are trying to reach these locations where they sit at a crossroads of rail and road networks to try to swing up and around on the last remaining defensive stronghold in Donetsk, which is far away for them on the Kramatorsk. And I think that Gerasimov and Putin are very focused on Pokrovsk currently. And I I noticed that in the last few days, Putin has started to say the town's name of Pokrovsk. He usually only uses towns and speaks about towns when he feels or has been assured by his leaders that they will have it, they will take it. And he last did this for Avdiivka. You may recall there were briefings where Putin is sitting at the table and he's looking at a very zoomed in picture of Avdiivka where all the brigades are going and then within you know a very short amount of time, they had razed it to the ground and raised the Russian flag over it. So, they're encroaching on Pokrovsk, Pokrovsk is evacuating currently. So that's what I'm looking at here. When Ukrainian units were moved away, some of them moved out of that area and were sent up to Kursk. Russian commanders did what their training told them to do and what I thought they would do. They would conclude that the correlation of forces has improved, and that tells them to move forward. And that's what they've been doing, advancing at a slightly faster rate. And so much so that there's a conversation going on in some of the Z-channels that maybe this is a trap, maybe the Ukrainians are leading them into a trap because their salient is getting longer and they're going to cut them off or something like that. It would become a trap only if there were enough Ukrainian units to exploit that overextension or if they've laid traps all the way up through and beyond Pokrovsk. That's not what the local Ukrainian commanders are saying. They're saying that they're experiencing a lot of pressure. There is a need to relieve them. Russian forces tend to target rotations very heavily. It's a very dangerous time for both sides when they try to rotate units. So, we have to see how this plays out, but right now, the Russians are not far from Pokrovsk. And after that, there's fewer and fewer defensive belts until the margins of Donetsk, which I think is that goal by the end of this year or early next year, what the Russians want to do, whether they'll be able to accomplish that is separate. But in my view, they have lost a lot to get this goal. I think it is important for Gerasimov personally to say that he has achieved this objective in Pokrovsk and Vuhledar in particular. He failed last year. I think he wants to make it right. I don't think that they have the steam to reach the limits of Donetsk this year. That's maybe a next year goal they will try to accomplish to say that, “yes, we now occupy all the territory that Vladimir Putin has set as part of the Russian Federation”. I could see that being their objective.
Alex. To close that off, I think that looking into the next year, I agree with you, Dara, you are the expert. I'm reading from you and other colleagues that one of the Russian constraints is really the manpower, the rates of losses throughout this war, but also throughout the campaign of 2024, it's just very high for the Russians to sustain that without a new round of mobilization, and their effort to recruit people by luring them into the army or forcing people, who are in the army doing the term service to switch to contract, has diminishing returns. They must hike the size of the bonus that people receive when signing up. And it looks like it's just a very much market signal that they don't get enough people. And some people may be, as our colleague Alexandra Prokopenko suggests, they see that the government is all the time hiking up the price and it's like an auction. So, they know, or they assume that three months from now it's going to be 500,000 rubbles or more. So, what are your expectations and projections, Dara, in terms of the Russian mobilization effort, like how many people they can pull? And what's the state of training? Because it's one thing to kind of recruit all the men. It's another thing to turn them into a combat ready force. You need material, you need junior officers to train them. So where does Russia stand and where does Ukraine stand very briefly?
Dara. Yes, that's a big question. So, I have a few different thoughts on it. I agree with you that the incentives are going up and up and up, meaning that there's that phenomenon where it's kind of like you're waiting at the gate at the airport, and they've overbooked the flight. And then they start announcing, “OK, $500 if you change your flight. $1,000 if you change your flight”. And people start waiting. I agree that there's some kind of phenomenon going on. And I agree that there are so many casualties, but if we look at who is experiencing the brunt of those casualties right now, we are talking about convicts. We're talking about some foreign fighters. We're talking about people in very far remote regions of Russia who don't have a better opportunity. The rest of Russian society, I'm sorry to say, is becoming kind of calloused to those kinds of losses. And the Russians are designing their force structure in a different way to accommodate the influx of this lower skilled labour by creating Storm-Z units or Storm-V units, where they're putting a lot of them into as they try to retain and hold on to those kontraktniki units, so that they have a fighting capability. So, you see these units being used in very set ways and obviously the storm units are the ones bearing the brunt of the casualties. And here's where a lot of leadership decisions come into play. The Russians could have, it's too late now so I'm not giving them any ideas, a year ago they could have done more of strategic pauses at various points in time and consolidated that pool, trained them up, given them equipment and used them as like a striking fist and they didn't do that. So, they're instead going for this grinding frontline approach where they may be getting anywhere from 10 to 30,000 people in the pipeline, they give them basic training, they throw them in a storm unit and then they shred them. And they shred the equipment that is affiliated with them. And that does have a finite point where it starts to run dry. where It's not there yet. The Russians are regenerating and they're repairing equipment well now. They're going in and retrieving it and getting it back and fixing it. And they're pulling it out of storage and the strategic reserve. But that does hit a brick wall. And at the rate that they're losing right now, it's probably towards the end of 2025 they could see that from the material side. The manpower side, you know they're printing a lot more money than I thought they would ever have to print to continue to do this in a volunteer way. I'm I'm still working on how to explain this to people, but it's like having a mixed military. it's contract-based now. It's volunteers, right? But they're running them as soon as they sign that dotted line. They are now mobilized forever until Putin declares this operation over. So, it's run as contract, but it's mobilized. It's wartime personnel policies, but and they are not logical. But I would just end on the point that, you know, Gerasimov is just going to grind this out. There are no more surprises that he's going to pull out of his hat. He is not talented enough or special enough to really introduce new ideas at this point in time. It's just surging at these objectives and then layering in the strike campaign on top of it to reduce will. But that's a choice that Kremlin made. They wanted to go with a stability choice, and that's what Gerasimov can offer them.
Alex. I think that my conclusion of this conversation, which is depressing as every time we touch the war subject, is that it remains very dangerous, contagious. It continues to surprise us and decision makers. It's most likely will continue into 2025 since no side wants to surrender. I think that the avenues for some conversations about limited ceasefire as reported recently by The Washington Post have been quit because of the incursion and both sides want to grind, in particular the Russians, since they have this brick wall by the end of 2025. It's unclear how much visibility the Kremlin has into these limitations, and they have a year and slightly more to adjust, adapt, and try to do something, which is hard. But unfortunately, we will inherit this terrible situation in 2025, most likely. That means that we will reconvene and continue to discuss. Thank you so much, Dara. It was great to have you and thank you so much, Alexey.
Dara. Thank you!
Alexey. Thank you, Alexander.
