Ukraine’s Russia incursion gamble leaves enemy in shock, allies guessing
With its daring incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, Ukraine has attempted to reshuffle the cards in the conflict after months of paralysis in its eastern Donbas region. It exposed Russian military weaknesses and could strengthen Ukraine’s position at the negotiating table.
A Ukrainian soldier scrambles up the wall of a village school in Russia’s Kursk region near the western border with Ukraine. Hoisted by a colleague, he reaches a red, white and blue Russian flag flapping in the summer breeze and tears it down to resounding cheers from Ukrainian soldiers gathered to mark the event, many recording the scene on their mobile phones.
The scene is repeated in several Russian villages in the video clip widely circulating on Ukrainian social networks. They were unimaginable just a few weeks ago as Ukraine, forced on the defensive in the eastern Donetsk region by last year’s failed counteroffensive, lost towns and villages to advancing Russian forces.
Suddenly, the war equation dramatically changed – in the most unexpected place. In an audacious military offensive that caught even Kyiv’s powerful Western backers by surprise Ukrainian forces on August 6 crossed the Russian border into Kursk. It marked the largest military incursion by a foreign army on Russian soil since World War II.
"We have taken control of 1,150 square kilometres of territory and 82 settlements," said top Ukrainian military commander Oleksandr Syrsky.
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