The Free Press, Mankato, Minnesota (TNS)
It was easy early on to shrug off Ukraine’s foray into Russia’s Kursk region. The surprise invasion smacked of Civil War cavalry raids — they were inspirational, and some of them were effective support for important operations, but smash-and-dash raids are not strategically significant.
But a month later, Ukraine’s forces have not pulled back, and Russia has been either unable or unwilling to dislodge them. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Ukraine intends to hold the estimated 500 square miles it has seized indefinitely.
The August foray carries a price and a risk. Ukraine weakened its defenses on the eastern front to make this push, and Russia continues to grind away at those positions. If Zelenskyy sought to force Moscow to pull back to defend Kursk, he has not succeeded.
But the Kursk incursion is still important politically. Even as another harsh winter approaches for the Ukrainian people, even as Russia once again targets Ukraine’s energy and power supplies, it demonstrates yet again that Ukraine is not willing to yield even as the Russian invasion nears the 1,000-day mark.
It also suggests the hollowness of the once-vaunted Russian military. Its weaponry has been degraded, and its military-age manpower diminished by Moscow’s inability to get beyond war-of-attrition thinking — an approach made all the worse by Russia’s shrinking population. The invasion has been a strategic disaster for Russia’s future.
The United States and its NATO allies have done much to aid Ukraine. Ukraine needs, and deserves, yet more.
First and foremost, Ukraine needs Kamala Harris to win the November election; Donald Trump, long an admirer of Vladimir Putin, would almost certainly sell out Kyiv should he return to the Oval Office.
Beyond that, the Biden administration should revisit the restrictions placed on the use of American-supplied weaponry. It is difficult to see how Ukraine can force Russia to withdraw from its territory in a purely defensive war — which may well be the point of the Kursk invasion.
Americans and major media outlets may be paying more attention to the war in Gaza, but Ukraine remains anything but a back-burner war.