Zelensky’s gamble

Volodymyr Zelensky isn’t a quitter. He fights for his country and its people’s right to exist as an independent nation with grit and passion. But neither is he a dreamer. His passion is tempered with realism — which is the hallmark of great war leaders. 

Ukraine’s spectacular incursion across the Russian border and its more recent attack on a border post south of Kursk is a gamble. But not a careless or a reckless one. Rather it’s a move dictated by a cold, pragmatic scrutiny of the chessboard. And it’s arguably the only viable option left eventually to secure a half-decent settlement, as the two-and-a-half-year war reaches stalemate. 

Invading Russian territory is not for the fainthearted. Flanked by Europe and Asia, Russia has experienced three major invasions in its history: the Mongols in the 13 th century; Napoleon in 1812; and Hitler in 1941. Only the Mongols succeeded. 

Zelensky has no intention of holding Russian territory. But he understands that war as a means of ensuring the survival of the Russian homeland – the Rodina – is a deeply rooted anxiety in the mind of its citizens. War and the memory of war permeates every part of Russian culture. The biggest holiday of the year, Victory Day on May 9 which commemorates the end of World War II, is a nationwide carnival of defiance. 

It follows that, perhaps more than most leaders, the prestige of the man in the Kremlin rests largely on his ability to secure Russia’s borders: to keep his people safe. In this Vladimir Putin has failed badly. Evacuees from Kursk will be spreading the news of this humiliation far and wide, adding to the grief of families across Russia who have lost hundreds of thousands of loved ones in Putin’s botched 2022 invasion. 

Added to this are numerous raids, drone attacks, submarine and warship sinkings in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov which demonstrate that, far from being helpless, Ukraine can hurt Russia and its superior forces pretty much at will. 

If Putin cannot protect the homeland, who will? That question is now writ large. It may not weaken Putin immediately. But it erodes his carefully nurtured strongman image and, at some point, will raise another question: Is it worth it? 

So that is the first aim of the Kursk gambit. To shake things up in the Kremlin and Russia’s high command. Even if Zelensky has to pull his troops back from Kursk, he has made his point. 

The second objective comes from a realisation that Ukraine is running out of time. Leaving aside the question of who will occupy the White House after November’s presidential elections, war fatigue is beginning to set in among Ukraine’s European allies. 

After pushing through a momentous change in German policy by announcing that the Federal Republic would supply Ukraine with heavy weapons, Chancellor Olaf Scholz is in deep trouble. His Social Democrats ran up their worst performance in elections to the European parliament in June.  

There is now talk of a cut-off date for military aid to Ukraine by 2027. Scholz, or indeed any new leader, may have to choose between heating German homes and supplying guns to Ukraine in the event of a fuel crisis or an economic downturn. The same ruthless logic must apply to France and the UK. 

Ukraine cannot expect its allies to fund the war indefinitely. With the best will in the world – and there’s plenty of that – something had to shift. Never mind Donald Trump. Kamala Harris and the US Congress would balk at a blank cheque for Ukraine. 

The war in the east is gridlocked. Russia’s superior numbers are beginning to take their toll on an exhausted Ukrainian army. Having failed to make gains in its counter-offensive last year, Ukraine is having a hard time dislodging Russia’s wall of concrete and landmines in the eastern Donbas region. 

Back in February, Zelensky fired many of his top generals in an attempt to reset how the war was being run. General Valerii Zaluzhnyi was replaced as Commander in Chief by General Oleksandr Syrskyi. Fresh ideas were badly needed to energise and reorganise his country’s undersupplied and badly mauled forces. Then in June he replaced Lt Gen Yuriy Sodol as Joint Forces commander with marine Brigadier Gen Andriy Hnatov. 

Many Ukrainians were uncomfortable with these sackings. They argued that, in the middle of an existential war, it was a blunder driven by panic. Winston Churchill once said: “It is difficult to remove a bad General at the height of a campaign; it is atrocious to remove a good General.” He nevertheless removed both Generals Archibald Wavell and Claude Auchinleck when the campaign against Rommel’s Afrika Korps wobbled. And then, under Bernard Montgomery, it didn’t. 

We don’t know who among Zelensky’s team is the architect of the Kursk operation, though Syrskyi must take overall responsibility. But clearly something has changed.  We now have a new balance of power. The stalemate has been broken. Ukraine has room to breathe. 

The next few weeks, before the sludge of autumn and the hard, frozen ground of winter set in, will be crucial. Will Putin pull troops away from the east to attack Ukraine’s elite forces in Kursk? Might he use battlefield nuclear weapons? Will he pile even more misery on Ukraine’s civilians? Who knows?

The West must judge its response to the Kursk gambit carefully. Nothing has changed. Russia – with or without Putin – remains a threat of the first order to the security of Europe. If the endgame envisaged by Zelensky is to hold a stronger hand to cut a better deal with Russia, then he must be given the tools to hold firm. 

Whatever the outcome of the war and subsequent talks, this will not be the end of it. Ukraine’s long-term security and, by default, the security of the Baltic states, Poland and continental Europe requires both the EU and NATO to underwrite any future deal. That should be our red line. 

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