Zelenskiy's gamble

The Ukrainian president's hope that invading Russia's Kursk region would force Moscow to redeploy troops away from the eastern front was a risky move-and the outcome is far from clear

- Dan Sabbagh SUMY

More than two weeks after its surprise incursion into Russia, Ukraine finds itself struggling to find a balance between seizing territory across the border in Kursk and losing it at the heart of the eastern front in central Donetsk.

Last Friday, Ukraine's commander in-chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi, claimed advances were being made of up to 3km a day inside Russia, but Moscow's forces have gained about 5km this month as the Kremlin bets heavily on capturing the hub of Pokrovsk.

In the minds of many Ukrainians, the two struggles are related and the ultimate result uncertain. Russia had been expected to shift significant forces from the east to defend Kursk.

But Hanna Shelest, a senior fellow with the Center for European Policy Analysis, said that while the daring Ukrainian attack had "gone better than expected", the reality was that "Russia has not probably moved enough forces from the eastern flank as had been hoped".

Last Thursday, the Institute for the Study of War, a US thinktank, said it believed that only "select elements of Russian irregular units" were being redeployed to Kursk - and that the Kremlin was likely to be "extremely averse to pulling Russian military units engaged in combat" near a priority sector such as Pokrovsk.

Russia's foreign ministry accused Ukraine of using US-made Himars rockets to blow up a strategic bridge north of Glushkovo in Kursk, 11km north of the international border - a move that could lead to the cutting-off of a chunk of Russian territory along the frontline to the village's south-west.