Kiev had been planning an incursion-style attack on Russia such as the one underway in Kursk Region for some time, NBC has reported, citing an unnamed senior adviser to the Ukrainian government.
On August 6, Ukraine launched its largest attack on internationally recognized Russian territory since the outbreak of the conflict in February 2022. The advance into Kursk Region was swiftly halted by Russia’s military, but Ukrainian troops still hold a number of settlements in the border area.
According to the adviser, whose comments were shared by the US broadcaster in an article on Friday, the idea of an incursion into Russia has been “on the table for more than a year” in Kiev.
The goal of the operation was to divert Russian attention from other parts of the front line, especially from Donbass, where Moscow’s forces have been steadily advancing since the start of the year, he said.
NBC described the attack on Kursk Region as a “high stakes gamble” by the Ukrainian authorities. The broadcaster reminded that this week, the Russian military announced the capture of three settlements from Kiev’s forces in Russia’s Donetsk People’s Republic, and approached the strategic town of Krasnoarmeysk (called Pokrovsk by the Ukrainians) where the evacuation of the population has been announced.
“The question now is how long Ukraine wants to — and can — hold onto it [area under its control in Kursk Region] without sacrificing more of its own eastern heartland,” the article read.
Earlier this week, Major-General Apty Alaudinov, commander of the Akhmat Special Forces from Russia’s Chechen Republic, said that the intelligence obtained by the Russian military suggests that the actual aim of the Ukrainian incursion was to capture the Kursk nuclear power plant. Kiev expected its troops to be able to achieve this by August 11, he added.
“This blitzkrieg by [Ukrainian leader Vladimir] Zelensky, which was supposed to see the seizure of the nuclear power plant in Kurchatov and the start of negotiations with an ultimatum for us [Russia] to leave some places or to do something, has failed,” Alaudinov stressed.
The Russian Defense Ministry said on Saturday that since the start of the incursion into Kursk Region, Kiev has lost up to 3,160 troops and several hundred units of military hardware, including 44 tanks, 43 APCs and three US-made HIMARS multiple rocket launch systems. “The operation to destroy the Ukrainian armed formations continues,” the ministry stressed.