With its incursion into Russia, Ukraine is back in the news

It's hard to know what is behind Ukraine's invasion of a small part of Russia.

Ukraine claims to be holding about 1,000 square kilometers of Russian territory in the Kursk region to the northwest of Ukraine, many kilometers from the main battleground in the southwest of the country. Nearly 30 villages in the area are reported to have fallen to the Ukrainians, although the death toll has been pretty limited (12 civilians). 

You can see why Russia was not prepared for this "surprise attack"! It does not appear to fulfill any obvious strategic role. So, what is the game plan here? What are they going to do with it now? No-one really seems to know, including, to some extent, the Ukrainians. 

There are unconfirmed reports that Ukraine is digging defensive lines, which suggests it is looking to hold onto at least some of the talent territory, although it is not clear why they would want to do that. It looks as though they intend to push still further into Russia, again with unknown aims.

President Putin has of course denigrated the move, saying that it was merely an attempt by Kyiv to achieve a better negotiating position in any possible talks to end the war (as though that were not a legitimate objective!) Ukraine's President Zelenskyy simply says that "Russia brought war to others. Now it is coming home." This may be true but is not in itself an explanation of the rationale behind the incursion. 

A Ukrainian official explained that their aim was to "inflict maximum losses and to destabilize the situation in Russia", which just sounds like boilerplate military-speak. Zelensky added that, "Russia must be forced to make peace", although it's not clear how this latest move helps to achieve that. US Senator Lindsey Graham called the operation "brilliant" and "bold", and called on the USA to provide Ukraine with any weapons it needs, although many NATO members worry that NATO may be seen to be attacking Russia directly. 

So, is it an attempt to draw Russian troops away from their continuing attacks on the Donbas region? Is it an attempt to boost Ukrainian morale? Is it an attenpt to destabilize President Putin politically among his people? A way of obtaining Russian prisoners of war for a POW "exchange fund"? All of the above? Is it just a relatively easy way for a win (any win!) after months of stalemate and slow Russian encroachment into Ukrainian territory.

There is also the issues of public relations and optics and the moral high ground. Certainly, Ukraine has the right to defend itself, including by attacking Russian miltary installations across the border. Western allies seem agreed on that. But do they have the right to essentially annex parts of Russia? Isn't that beyond their brief, if they want to stay on the right side of their rich Western benefactors? More than one NATO ally has said that they are not comfortable contributing armaments that are bring used for this current novel offensive.

It is certainly a high risk strategy, and it could well result in increased Russian attacks on Ukraines's civilian population and infrastructure. But it has certainly woken the war up after a rather sleepy period of stalemate. Ukraine is back in the news! And maybe that is all they wanted.

UPDATE

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry is now, belatedly, saying that the cross-border operation is aimed at protecting Ukrainian land from Russian long-range strikes launched from Kursk, a "strategic buffer".

It argues that Russia has launched over 2,000 air-strikes from the Kursk region in recent months. That may be, but they have also launched many more from other nearby areas, and if they are being kept out of one area, even temporarily, surely they will only move just down the road to another less risky area. The border with Ukraine is over 1,000 km long, after all. I still maintain that it is mainly a PR exercise, though. 

And meanwhile, Russian troops are continuing their push into the Ukrainian Donbas region, and are now close to taking the strategic city of Pokrovsk. They are probably relatively unconcerned with Ukraine's presence in the distant and not-particularly-strategic Kursk region, which they probably see as an easy clean-up operation later.