Sergei Chemezov, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, says the United States and its Western allies risk triggering a global war if Washington continues provoking the conflict in Ukraine and allowing Kyiv to attack Russian territory.
Chemezov’s words were one of a few Russian reactions to Ukraine’s surprise incursion into Russia, but they clearly alluded to Moscow’s “red lines” in relation to Western weapons being used against its territory.
Ukraine, which has been defending its own territory since the invasion of Russia two and a half years ago, launched a surprise incursion into the Russian region of Kursk on August 6th. Kyiv claims it has captured 1,250 square kilometres of Russian territory so far.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has given many reasons for moving into Russia:
- to create a buffer zone against Russian attacks on civilian centres;
- to capture Russian soldiers and be in a better bargaining position when it comes to exchanging prisoners of war;
- to bring the war closer to an end on “fair” terms;
- and to prove to his Western allies that Russia’s so-called “red lines” are a myth and that attacking Russia has no consequences, despite threats made by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Putin has long warned that the use of Western-supplied weapons to strike Russian territory would be a breach of “red lines,” and Russia, which is a nuclear power, would retaliate. “The naive, illusory concept of so-called red lines regarding Russia, which dominated the assessment of the war by some partners, has crumbled apart these days,” Zelensky said on Monday, August 19th, referring to U.S. and European weapons that were used during the Kursk incursion.
Ukraine’s Western allies have heavily supplied the war-torn country with weapons since the beginning of the Russian invasion, providing ammunition, missiles, tanks, air defence systems, fighter planes, and a wide range of other weaponry. Zelensky has been pressuring these countries to step up their assistance, and despite earlier hesitance, in May, both the United States and Germany authorised the limited use of their weapons against targets inside Russian territory. Other countries that have allowed Ukraine to do so include the United Kingdom, Canada, Poland, Baltic, and Scandinavian states.
“If our partners lifted all the current restrictions on the use of weapons on Russian territory, we would not need to physically enter particularly the Kursk region to protect our Ukrainian citizens in the border communities and eliminate Russia’s potential for aggression,” Zelensky said, adding that “Russia is not the fearsome superpower it once appeared to be.”
Whether a “red line” has indeed been crossed remains to be seen, as Russia is still reeling from the surprise attack, and Putin hasn’t said anything about a counter-strike against the West. On Tuesday, referring to the incursion, he said “We will punish the criminals. There can be no doubt about this.”
What Russia has done is to slow down the enemy’s advance, pulling in reinforcements to an unprotected area. The Russians are “trying to muster an overwhelming new force to crush Ukraine’s bridgehead in Kursk, or using their advantage in aviation and artillery to gradually pound the defenders into a retreat. But both those strategies could take weeks, or even months to carry out,” military analysts told The New York Times.
At the same time, Russian forces have been able to make further advances in the eastern Ukrainian territory of the Donbas, as only a limited number of Russian units had to be withdrawn from the Ukrainian battlefield to deal with the incursion in the Kursk region.
An expansion of the war into new territories only favours Moscow, according to the analysts, as Russia, with triple the population and a larger industrial base, enjoys a significant resource advantage. As Andrew Latham, a professor of international relations, wrote in his opinion article for The Hill:
While the incursion has captured headlines and inflicted some measure of psychological damage on Russia, such superficial victories do little to alter the fundamental dynamics of the conflict. Russia, despite its setbacks, remains a formidable military power with a vast arsenal and a nuclear deterrent. Ukraine, while demonstrating courage and resilience, faces a daunting challenge in overcoming this overwhelming disparity.
More critically, this diversion of forces from the main theater of war is a huge strategic miscalculation. Every soldier, tank and piece of artillery deployed in the Russian incursion represents a loss to the Ukrainian effort to liberate occupied territories.
Ukraine’s Western allies, who have happily supported Ukraine for the past two-and-half years, have reacted cautiously, or not reacted at all to the incursion in Kursk—most probably out of surprise, as nobody expected such an act by Ukraine, but also in fear of further provoking Moscow.
Outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden said the incursion is “creating a real dilemma for Putin,” while a spokesman at the U.S. State Department said, “I expect that we will continue to stand shoulder to shoulder with our Ukrainian partners.”
A European Commission spokesman also declined to comment, saying “the European Union is not involved, and is not commenting on, the operational developments on the front line.”
Germany’s defence ministry was more supportive of Kyiv, with a spokesman saying that “international law provides for a state that is defending itself also to defend itself on the territory of the attacker.”
The leader of one of Ukraine’s staunchest supporting countries, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, said he clearly backs Kyiv’s operation, because Russian actions in Ukraine bear “the hallmarks of genocide, inhumane crimes, and Ukraine has every right to wage war in such a way as to paralyse Russia in its aggressive intentions as effectively as possible.”
