In the early hours of August 6, the Ukrainian army launched a surprise invasion of Russia's Kursk region. The fighting has been going on for 4 days and everyone is wondering what Vladimir Putin's reaction will be.
The Ukrainian publication oboz.ua writes that Putin still does not risk increasing the degree of escalation, because he used words like “large-scale provocation” from the side of Ukraine, not an invasion. The Russian president does not dare to admit that for the first time since World War II, a foreign army is invading the Russian Federation.
Predictions of an official declaration of war on Ukraine did not come true. Instead, a criminal case was opened on charges of a “terrorist attack”. As is known, Russia does not call its military aggression against Ukraine by its real name, but uses the term “special military operation”. Russia is not on paper a state of war, even though it has lost hundreds of thousands of its soldiers in nearly 900 days.
The situation in the Kursk region is very dynamic and is still actively changing. The main thing that can be said, as the Russians themselves claim, is that the city of Suja is under Ukrainian control. This operation differs greatly in scale from previous Ukrainian actions on Russian territory, which involved mostly Russian partisans fighting on the side of Kiev. Western publications comment that Ukraine has now sent to Russian territory one of its most elite brigades.
The operation can have at least two goals, according to Oleksandr Kovalenko, a military-political analyst from the group “Information Resistance”. The first is the creation of a sanitary zone. The chosen breakout direction is in favor of this version. The second goal is the withdrawal of Russian troops from other areas of the front.
This operation by the Armed Forces is another effective argument that demonstrates to Western allies that they do not need to fear threats of escalation from the Kremlin, and therefore Ukraine should be allowed to fight the aggressor in any way possible . Kiev wants Western countries to lift the ban on striking Russian territory with Western missiles.
The Kremlin's reaction did not surprise anyone – first the Russians spread their usual lie that everything was under control and the Ukrainian attack was repulsed. They did not give an explanation why a state of emergency was declared then and why there is se-za-500-ubiti-ruski-voinici" target="_blank">column of Russian military vehicles with hundreds dead bodies of Russian soldiers. Moscow will try to use the attack for propaganda purposes – to accuse Ukraine of aggression, although Russia itself is the aggressor in this war, and the Ukrainians are only defending themselves.
The reaction of Western countries is indicative – in effect, they told Kiev it could do whatever it saw fit to defend itself. The US State Department pointed out that Ukraine has a legitimate right to defend itself, and the EU's position was identical: Kiev “has the legal right to defend itself, in particular by striking an aggressor on its territory”. The usual nuclear threats from Russia were not late either. Russian propagandists have called on Putin to launch nuclear strikes on Ukrainian forces to stop them from advancing further, but there is currently no indication that the Russian Armed Forces are ready to resort to this extreme measure, from which there will be no turning back.
„Official Moscow must understand that Ukraine is not a punching bag where it can practice punches, but a country that is trying to defend itself from barbaric attacks. And if the Ukrainian troops entered the Kursk region, it was an act of self-defense, in accordance with international law,” said the diplomat, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine to the Republic of Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina (2010-2017) Oleksandr Levchenko. As for the use of nuclear weapons, according to Levchenko, this is simply blackmailing Ukraine and the international community, which is unlikely to be implemented in real action.
Political analyst Vitaly Portnikov said the West should shake off its illusions that Vladimir Putin will stop hostilities on his own accord at some point. It is already more than obvious that Putin only wants the capture of Ukraine. And the only way to prevent this is clear: give Ukraine as many weapons as possible to defend itself and win the war.