The Not-So-Hopeless Cause

A World News Roundup

Well, that’s a pleasant surprise. (From the Institute for the Study of War.)

The big international news of the past month is the Kursk incursion.

For the past two years—for the past 10 years, really—Russia has invaded Ukraine. Now, finally, Ukraine has returned the favor, sending thousands of troops across an undefended bit of border into the Russian province of Kursk, and since then a smaller force into the Belgorod province. They caught the Russians by surprise and have encountered astonishingly little resistance.

The clear inspiration for this was Yevgeny Prigozhin’s brief, doomed Wagner Group mutiny in the middle of last year. Prigozhin demonstrated that there was no resistance inside Russia, and if you gathered a force of men, you could drive all the way to Moscow. Maybe you couldn’t succeed in knocking over the government when you got there—though Prigozhin lost his nerve and never put that to the test. But it showed how few reserves Russia has as it throws everything at the front lines in the Donbas region.

So far, Russia has been able to count on Ukraine fighting back only on the front lines within Ukraine, not making a sweep around those lines. So is it a good idea for Ukraine to widen the war in this way, and what do they hope to accomplish by doing so?