Ukraine Shows It Can Pull Off a Complex and Shocking Invasion of Russia

Ukraine’s ambitious cross-border offensive began Tuesday with troops advancing up to 10 kilometers into the Kursk region, an area bordering Sumy and just north of Belgorod and Kharkiv. The mechanized offensive appears to have progressed rapidly in the days that followed, according to geotagged imagery and Russian statements collected by the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. However, it is not confirmed how much territory Ukraine actually controls in the region.

Ukraine’s intentions in the attack are also unclear, although some have speculated that it may be to gain leverage in negotiations with Russia, humiliate Putin, distract the Kremlin, boost Ukrainian morale, and/or divert Russian attention and forces from other fighting along the front.

Whatever Ukraine’s intention in this attack, this sudden breakthrough into Russia appears to have caught Moscow by surprise. The Kremlin has tried to downplay the recent developments, as Russian ultranationalist voices and Kursk residents have called on Russian President Vladimir Putin for help. They claim that the information he is receiving about the situation on the ground is inaccurate.

As the offensive continues to unfold and additional details become available, one thing is beginning to become clear: Ukraine has managed to conduct an operationally secure, coordinated, and extensively prepared offensive despite the often transparent nature of the battlespace due to extensive reconnaissance and surveillance.

“The attack demonstrates that despite ongoing discussions about a so-called transparent battlefield, where every movement of every vehicle and every soldier can be tracked, it is still possible to achieve surprise at the tactical level at this stage of the war,” Franz-Stefan Gady, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, told Business Insider.

Gady said part of the success of Ukraine’s combined arms operation – which in this case involved integrating air and missile defense with mechanized units and electronic warfare – was that it appeared to have “significantly disrupted the electromagnetic spectrum of Russian communications systems.”

The effectiveness of this effort somewhat prevented Russian forces and Kursk authorities from communicating and helped Ukraine maintain an element of surprise.

It is not even clear whether Ukraine informed its main allies, including the United States, about this mission.

Conflict analysts, military officials and other expert observers of war have debated the idea that the conflict in Ukraine is a “transparent battlefield,” or at least a demonstration that modern warfare is increasingly transparent because of the challenge posed by the prolific presence of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities that make it difficult to hide from the enemy.

In the war in Ukraine, drones of all kinds and the ability to use unmanned vehicles to gather information, scout positions, or launch attacks beyond enemy lines provide greater situational awareness. And these capabilities are often combined with other, more traditional ISR capabilities.

Beyond sensors, some of which have thermal and night vision options, advances in electronic warfare have also made the task more difficult, leaving forces and systems exposed to the electromagnetic spectrum. But battlefield observation capabilities are not necessarily complete, and things are going unnoticed.

On Thursday, as it became increasingly clear that Ukraine had skillfully kept the details of its operation secret, some experts weighed in. “Maybe we can finally get rid of the ‘transparent battlefield’ misconception,” wrote Mick Ryan, a retired Australian major general and strategist who focuses on war developments, on X.

Ryan praised the Ukrainians, adding that “the level of strategic, operational and tactical deception demonstrated by the Ukrainians in planning, marshalling forces and ongoing execution of the Kursk operation was superb.”

The impact of the Ukrainian invasion, particularly on the Russian leadership and the Kremlin, is also notable. It places Putin in a delicate situation, particularly one where he must simultaneously prove that Russia is capable of securing its borders and maintaining its costly war effort in order to assuage any potential concerns or discontent on the part of Russian citizens.

According to Gady, it also caused some embarrassment to the Russian leadership, as the attack “was not detected or adequately responded to,” which he said is “often the case in Russian military culture.”

The problem for Ukraine now is whether it can achieve its goals, whatever they may be, inside and outside Russia. If the Kursk operation is intended to distract, attract attention, or provide leverage, Ukraine will need munitions, men, vehicles, and other resources to maintain its momentum and keep it going. That is a difficult task.

Russia is already trying to break Ukraine’s momentum, saying on Thursday it had halted an incursion as fighting continued in the region. Moscow also said it was bombarding Ukrainian positions in the Sumy region, on the border with Kursk, with gliding bombs weighing more than 2,700 kg.

But the other goal could be to dominate the information war outright. “By dominating the information landscape, Ukraine is signaling to its Western partners that it is capable of planning and conducting complex military operations in secret,” Gady said.

He added that “it also demonstrates to Russia that Ukraine can bring war to its territory, thus underlining its current dynamics.”