On the sixth day of Ukraine’s advance into Kursk Oblast in southern Russia, there’s growing evidence the Ukrainian invasion corps—some or all of up to five 2,000-person brigades plus at least one 400-person independent battalion—plans to stay.
The Ukrainians are digging trenches. Anticipating static warfare along or near the existing front line, the Russians are digging in, too.
That both sides are fortifying their positions doesn’t mean the Ukrainians are done advancing. Nor does it mean the Russians can’t counterattack—and push the Ukrainians back to the border, 10 miles away.
But it does mean that stabilization of the front line—and a long-term Ukrainian occupation of part of Kursk—is on the table.
Russian military correspondent Aleksandr Kharchenko observed Ukrainian forces digging trenches in Kursk on Sunday. He described it as “the worst thing that can happen,” according to a translation of his missive by Estonian analyst War Translated.
Ukrainian sources have spotted industrial excavators at work on both sides of the front line.
“Once the enemy picks up shovels, in two days it will be just as difficult to take the forest stands as it was near Avdiivka” in eastern Ukraine, Kharchenko added. It took the Russian military six months to roll back Ukrainian defenses in Avdiivka—and cost it tens of thousands of casualties.
Arguably, the Russians won the battle for Avdiivka in mid-February only because the Ukrainians ran out of ammunition following months of delays in U.S. aid to Ukraine orchestrated by Russia-friendly lawmakers in the U.S. Congress.
Now that U.S. aid is flowing again, Russian forces around the Kursk salient can’t count on the Ukrainian invasion corps running out of ammo. To push potentially thousands of Ukrainian troops out of Kursk, they’ll have to capture one trench at a time.
Unless, of course, the Kremlin can organize a powerful counterattack before the Ukrainian trenches are complete. But “the window of opportunity is rapidly closing,” Kharchenko warned—and Ukrainian attacks are blocking Russian reinforcements trying to reach the Kursk front line.
Russian columns “are met by Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance groups, drones and artillery,” wrote Artur Rehi, an Estonian soldier and analyst.
If and when it stabilizes, the Kursk salient could become another major front in Russia’s 29-month wider war on Ukraine.
The Ukrainians have already positioned potentially more than 10,000 troops in Kursk and the adjacent Ukrainian oblast, Sumy. And according to the Ukrainian Center for Defense Strategies, Russia’s Northern Grouping of Forces is trying to move 10 to 11 battalions to the front line—perhaps 4,000 troops in all.
Those 10 or so Russian battalions are just the initial echelon, however. On paper, the Northern Grouping of Forces oversees 48,000 troops. Many of them are bogged down in Vovchansk, the locus of Russia’s own attack across the Russia-Ukraine border that kicked off in May.
But if it gives up trying to advance in Vovchansk and other front-line towns and cities, the Russian military could shift significant forces to Kursk. Indeed, compelling the Russians to deplete their forces along other fronts may have been the Ukrainian invasion corps’ main objective.
Kyiv is probably trying to “divert some of the Russian attention and Russian troops stationed in the eastern parts of Ukraine,” France 24’s Emmanuelle Chaze noted, citing Ukrainian sources.
Once the trenches are complete, that diversion could become long-term—if not permanent.
