Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission.
In July 1943, the Nazis launched a colossal assault at the Kursk salient on the eastern front. The Soviet Red Army was ready. After roughly two weeks of massive battles, the Red Army prevailed as the Nazi offensive stalled. Hitler’s army never again took the offensive in a major way on the eastern front. Two years later, Hitler had committed suicide as the Soviet Army reduced Berlin to rubble.
In August 2024, Ukrainian forces launched a far smaller assault into Russian territory near Kursk. The limited offensive seems to have taken Russia by surprise; what remains unclear is the objective and staying power of the offensive. Meanwhile, Russian forces are advancing further into Ukraine, with some reports suggesting that Ukraine unwisely weakened its forces on the main battlefront to launch its assault near Kursk.
Since truth is the first casualty of war, it’s very difficult to get at exactly what’s happening in the Russia-Ukraine War. Both sides continue to suffer. Neither side, it appears to me, holds a decisive war-winning advantage. But things can happen very slowly in war, then very quickly. Unpredictability is the very nature of war. All that’s really certain is that the longer the war lasts, the worst the killing and destruction will get.
Consider this report written by a friend and colleague, Paul Schwennesen. He recently visited the Kursk region and sees Ukraine as winning an important moral victory there. Russia, he opines, has already lost the war: Putin just doesn’t know it yet. Ukraine will fight to the last man, he notes, and that level of determination will lead them to victory.
Here is his concluding paragraph:
Wars are won in the heart of a people, not through the rational calculations of military planners. While there is momentum left in the Russian war machine, it is only a matter of time before reality sinks in that the Russian heart is not in this fight. Whether the war ends in the shattering of its fragile federation or in some half-hearted armistice measures to mitigate its appalling losses, Russia simply cannot go on. The Kursk offensive, for all its complexities and contradictions, has, if nothing else, opened a clear window into the popular wills of each side.
I’d be very careful extrapolating from Ukraine’s local successes near Kursk that “Russia simply cannot go on.” Russian forces, after all, are going on, driving Ukrainian forces back toward Pokrovsk. There are reports of Ukrainian conscripts being thrown into battle after only a month’s training. The Kursk advance itself may have been a gambit by Ukraine to show progress to Western allies, especially the U.S., thereby garnering more aid, while at the same time exerting pressure on Putin to negotiate. Yet, which side is under the most pressure? Again, it remains very much unclear to me.
It’s always interesting to consult the corporate media in the U.S., so here’s a summary courtesy of CBS News with the headline, “U.S. Announces More Aid for Ukraine at ‘Critical Moment’ in War with Russia, but Zelensky Says More Is Needed.” It seems the war is always at a “critical moment”; it also seems Zelensky always wants more aid, especially long-range missiles and air defense systems. Even before Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin met recently with Zelensky, the Biden administration announced another $250 million in aid, a commitment that didn’t placate the Ukrainian leader.
Meanwhile, former President Trump continues to suggest that, assuming he’s reelected in November, he will magically end the war even before he’d take office as president next January. Presumably, that means he’d greatly reduce or cutoff aid to Ukraine, forcing that country to seek an armistice with Putin before an inevitable collapse.
Zelensky frames such an event as a calamitous surrender to Russian terror that would embolden Putin to expand his empire at the expense of the former Baltic states and possibly countries like Poland. Whether this nightmare scenario for NATO has any validity is unknown. It’s certainly persuasive to those who fear Putin and a revival of some form of a revanchist Russian empire.
What remains true, at least to me, is the dangerous escalatory potential of this war. Remember when the U.S. was only going to provide defensive weaponry to Ukraine? How quickly that escalated to main battle tanks, fighter jets, and longer-range offensive missiles like ATACMS. Ukraine continues to ask for even more offensive weaponry and greater latitude to employ it deep within Russia. Russia’s response to such weapons, if deployed and used, is unpredictable, but tactical nuclear weapons are conceivable.
With that possibility, I just don’t see a decisive, war-winning, military offensive for Ukraine, so how long will it take to reach a diplomatic settlement? The usual U.S. response is that Ukraine is in the driver’s seat and that as long as they’re willing to fight and die, we’ll keep sending them more weapons and aid. This is a recipe for more war, for sure, but also for far more misery for Ukraine and Russia, and to what end, precisely?
Readers, what do you make of all this?
William J. Astore is a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF). He taught history for fifteen years at military and civilian schools. He writes at Bracing Views.