Moscow's army waited more than five weeks before launching its ground counteroffensive in the Russian region of Kursk, bordering Ukraine. The first attempt was launched on Tuesday, September 10. On Thursday, September 12, the Russian Defense Ministry claimed on Telegram to have retaken "10 localities" conquered by the Ukrainians in "two days." The Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) launched the surprise attack on Russian territory on August 6, occupying a maximum area of 1,300 square kilometers in less than a week. This was the equivalent of what the Russians had conquered over the previous six months in Ukraine. The lines then stabilized around a territory of 1,000 square kilometers.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged for the first time on Thursday that the Russians had begun a counterattack to oust his troops. Zelensky was reassuring: "Everything is going according to our Ukrainian plan," he declared, without further details, at a press conference in Kyiv.
It is still too early to judge the success of the Russian counteroffensive; the situation remains dynamic and visual evidence is sparse. It is known that the Russian General Staff sent a force of around 6,000 soldiers, members of elite troops (paratroopers and marine infantry), to the western flank of the Kursk Salient (the territory conquered by Kyiv). The Russian Armed Forces crossed rivers with light armor, broke through Ukrainian lines, and retook three villages, Snagost, 10-y Oktyabr and Vnezapnoe.
"It's a fact that we've launched a counteroffensive with new forces. Yesterday we were optimistic, today less so. We have to wait and see," a source close to the Russian army in Moscow told Le Monde on Thursday. They said that at least one airborne division had been moved from the Donbas to the Kursk region. "Our operation was initially very successful, with several villages liberated and prisoners taken. Resistance was weak, as the Ukrainians did not have a continuous front line. The initial successes are therefore very probably the result of the surprise effect. But there's no progress yet."
Despite the unusual speed of the Russian attack, Ukrainian military expert Yevhen Dykyi said "there was no surprise" for the Ukrainians, because "it was obvious that sooner or later the Russian Armed Forces would try to drive out the AFU." In his view, the Ukrainian general staff opted for an in-depth defense of a terrain of forests and rivers. "The choice was made not to build solid defensive lines, to make do with fortifications in particularly vulnerable areas, with highly mobile groups, along the lines of what was successfully carried out in northern Ukraine in the spring of 2022."
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