How Russia is trying to respond to kyiv’s incursion into the Kursk region

Object : “Preparation of shelters and trenches in the Kursk region.” Tools : “Provided by the employer”. Salary : “Up to 230,000 rubles [2 368 euros] per month”. Nine days after the start of the Ukrainian incursion on Russian soil, Moscow’s response sometimes takes an unexpected form. This classified ad, which franceinfo has consulted, was posted online on Wednesday, August 14 on “Avito”, the equivalent of Le Bon Coin in Russia. To create this “dsecond line of defense”further back from the border with Ukraine,The Kremlin needs men, lots of men, and the profile doesn’t matter.Professional experience required? “None”.

For the time being, the Russian army still appears incapable of pushing back “the enemy” outside its territory. kyiv claimed on Thursday that it controls 82 localities and 1,150 km2 in the Kursk region. However, according to the public messages of Russian officials, Ukrainian troops are no longer advancing. They are even starting to run out of steam, and their human losses are enormous. The Russian Defense Ministry regularly posts videos on its Telegram account of its men stopping, burn or recover equipment belonging to kyiv in the border areas of the Kursk region.

Yet, in a sign that the situation is much more complex, Russia is now shippinghuman and material reinforcements. Thus, theDefense Minister Andrei Belousov announced on Telegram on Thursday “the allocation of additional forces and resources” in the Belgorod region. Moscow has also begun redeploying troops to the Kursk region. “Russia has moved some of its units from the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions in southern Ukraine”assures the site Politico Dmytro Lykhovy, the spokesman of the Ukrainian army, while taking care to specify that it was a number “relatively weak” of units.

In a video where he talks with Volodymyr Zelensky, the Lithuanian Minister of Defense, Laurynas Kasciunas, Russia has also ordered the transfer of part of its troops from Kaliningrad (the enclave Russian located between Poland, Lithuania and the Baltic Sea) to the Kursk region. Finally, Moscow can count on the support of Belarus: its leader Alexander Lukashenko has given the order to transfer part of the military equipment to Russia to send it to the Kursk region, writes the media Belnovosti, citing a source in the Ministry of Defense.

However, “The Russian response is so far laborious, confused and disorganized,” observed General Jérôme Pellistrandi, editor-in-chief of Review National Defense. “Moscow was so unprepared for this type of offensive that he seems helpless.” Ddeploying men will take time, for example, “several more days”. There are already 1,337 kilometers between Kaliningrad and Kursk, 880 km between Kherson and Kursk.

The Russian army is facing a dilemma. It must regain lost sovereignty over part of its territory. But, “to achieve this, she is forced to to wage war on one’s own soil”, note it General Jerome Pellistrandi. “And that means destroying his own villages. Putin, for the moment, is stuck.”

On the kyiv side, it is estimated that Russia’s response to the first incursion on its soil since 1945 has not yet started. Moscow “will feel the need to react very harshly, in a huge way, to show the world that it is all-powerful and that an incident like Kursk will not go unpunished”confided At Sunday Times a Ukrainian defense source spoke on condition of anonymity.

“And it won’t be just four missiles. There may be hundreds of them, they will use sophisticated weapons – cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and Shaheds.”

A source from the Ukrainian defense

to the “Sunday Times”

According to some experts, sending hundreds of missiles against Ukrainian infrastructure is a more likely option for Moscow than launching an offensive on Sumy, the large Ukrainian city located on the border, opposite Kursk.

Another option is being considered: to let kyiv continue its breakthrough to Kursk, in order to allow the Russian army to neutralize a greater number of Ukrainian fighters on its soil. “Politically speaking, this strategy could have negative effects for Russia. But it could have some military merit.”evaluates in Newsweek researcher Marina Miron, a member of the War Studies Department at King’s College London.

In short, Moscow is faced with a complex situation: how to respond to what Vladimir Putin describes as “major provocation”while ensuring that the signal is also well understood by the Western countries that supply weapons to kyiv? In the photos published by the Russian Ministry of Defense, we can recognize German infantry fighting vehicles of the Marder type, or Panzer armored vehicles. This is the equipment that Ukrainian soldiers used to infiltrate Russian soil on August 6.