An Analysis of the 2024 Kursk Campaign of the Russo-Ukrainian War

By Dr. Robert Nelson and SGM Benjamin Pingel

The incursion initiated by the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) into the Kursk Oblast of the Russian Federation on August 6, 2024, represents a pivotal operational event in contemporary interstate conflict that warrants critical analysis from the perspectives of the warfighting functions (Baker, 2025). Marking the first conventional ground invasion and sustained occupation of sovereign Russian territory by a foreign military since the Second World War, the campaign sent immediate shockwaves across the tactical front, the strategic architecture of Moscow and Kyiv, and the broader international security community (Baker, 2025; Ryan, 2024a). Spearheaded by some of Ukraine’s most combat-effective mechanized, air assault, and reconnaissance formations, including the 80th and 82nd Air Assault Brigades alongside the 22nd and 61st Mechanized Brigades, the initial thrust breached border fortifications, disintegrated local garrison units, and seized upwards of one thousand square kilometers of territory, including the strategic transit and natural gas metering hub of Sudzha, within the span of two weeks (Evans et al., 2025; Baker, 2025).

Prior to this bold move, the consensus among military theorists, defense analysts, and strategic practitioners was that the Russo-Ukrainian theater had stabilized into an inescapable positional equilibrium similar to that of trench warfare in World War One (Evans et al., 2025; Jones et al., 2023). The convergence of pervasive intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance (ISTAR) sensors, ubiquitous unmanned aerial systems (UAS), dense minefields, and responsive precision fires created a transparent battlefield (Darwish, 2025; Jones et al., 2023; Madden, 2025). Under this paradigm, operational concentration appeared detectable at inception and mechanized penetration prohibitive, consigning combat to attritional struggles where frontline progression was measured in dozens of meters per day (Jones & McCabe, 2024). Ukraine’s swift operational breakthrough at Kursk, achieving an advance velocity surpassing 1,200 meters per day, demonstrated that operational surprise and dynamic combined-arms maneuver remain achievable even within an intensely contested, sensor-dense operating environment (Jones & McCabe, 2024; Ryan, 2024a).

Yet, by early 2025, the strategic parameters of the attackers reversed (Evans et al., 2025; Baker, 2025). As Ukrainian spearheads reached their culmination point along extended, exposed flanks, the Russian high command restructured its regional command architecture under the Northern Grouping of Forces and mounted a coordinated multi-axis counteroffensive (Baker, 2025; Evans et al., 2025). Leveraging massive standoff aerial bombardments via Universal Glide and Correction Module (UMPK) glide bombs, concentrated naval infantry and airborne formations, expeditionary ground forces from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), and novel technological adaptations, notably unjammable fiber-optic-guided First-Person View (FPV) drones and thermal-cloaked assault armor, Russian forces systematically interdicted Ukrainian ground lines of communication (GLOCs) (Evans et al., 2025; Watling & Reynolds, 2025). These actions transformed the salient from an exemplar of fluid maneuver into a lethal cauldron of attrition, compressing Ukraine’s perimeter and imposing acute sustainment and force-preservation dilemmas upon their commanders (Baker, 2025).

There are many things that can be learned from this campaign. Thus, a rigorous analysis of the Kursk campaign requires examining it through the lens of the United States Army’s core Warfighting Functions, as outlined in Field Manual (FM) 3-0: Operations: Command and Control, Movement and Maneuver, Intelligence, Fires, Sustainment, and Protection (Department of the Army, 2025).

Command and Control (C2)

The Command and Control warfighting function focuses on synchronizing military forces across domains to accomplish mission objectives (Department of the Army, 2025). In high-intensity conventional operations, C2 functions as the operational nervous system; its efficacy is determined not merely by communications bandwidth, but by institutional philosophy, organizational hierarchy, and the capacity to sustain decision advantage amid acute friction (Ryan, 2024b; Zabrodskyi et al., 2022).

The preparation and early execution phases of the Kursk incursion will stand in military textbooks as an exceptional demonstration of operational security and decentralized mission command under extreme conditions (Darwish, 2025; Madden, 2025). Having learned costly lessons from the heavily publicized 2023 counteroffensive in Zaporizhzhia, Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Colonel-General Oleksandr Syrskyi and his general staff placed this operation under the strictest compartmentalization (Baker, 2025). Tactical brigade and battalion commanders were initially informed that troop movements in Sumy Oblast represented defensive reinforcements deployed to parry an impending Russian assault on Sumy city (Baker, 2025). By shrouding offensive assembly within a plausible defensive posture, the Ukrainian General Staff achieved strategic and operational surprise on a battlefield long presumed to be completely transparent to electronic and orbital sensors (Jones & McCabe, 2024; Ryan, 2024b).

Once the boundary was breached, Ukrainian C2 as enables by a distributed, resilient communications architecture (Watling & Reynolds, 2025). Company- and platoon-level commanders leveraged low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellite networks, chiefly Starlink, paired with frequency-hopping tactical digital radios and situational awareness platforms like the Delta and Kropyva battle management software to make fast, decentralized decisions (Darwish, 2025; Madden, 2025). This network converged real-time orbital, signals, and tactical drone feeds into a localized Common Operational Picture (COP), compressing the sensor-to-shooter cycle to a matter of minutes and allowing tactical leaders to out-cycle local Russian commanders (Darwish, 2025; Zabrodskyi et al., 2022).

Subordinate tactical commanders from the 80th and 82nd Air Assault Brigades were given broad operational boundaries rather than rigid, prescribed movement corridors (Baker, 2025). Company and reconnaissance echelons were actively empowered to bypass contested Russian defensive garrisons, exploit unguarded terrain seams, and execute fluid envelopments without awaiting upper-echelon authorization (Baker, 2025; Ryan, 2024b). This dynamic decision-making cycle completely disoriented local Russian forces whose rigid command structures required vertical approval chains to validate artillery clearances or redeploy regional reserve echelons (Baker, 2025; Zabrodskyi et al., 2022).

Conversely, the Russian command apparatus initially collapsed into bureaucratic paralysis (Baker, 2025). Operational responsibility for the Kursk border was splintered across multiple competing authorities: the Federal Security Service (FSB) border guards, the Russian National Guard (Rosgvardia), young conscripts subordinate to regional military districts, and conventional Ministry of Defense elements (Baker, 2025). This fragmented chain of command produced disastrous delays in reporting, contradictory battle damage assessments, and an inability to deliver unified counter-orders (Baker, 2025).

In contrast, the Russian defensive response collapsed into institutional paralysis, exposing the systemic command pathologies, such as vertical over-centralization and suppressed lateral communication, first documented during the 2022 invasion (Zabrodskyi et al., 2022). In the critical first 96 hours, Russian operational control fractured across four competing bureaucracies lacking a unified theater commander: the Federal Security Service (FSB) border guards, the Russian National Guard (Rosgvardia), young Ministry of Defense (MoD) conscripts, and irregular Chechen "Akhmat" forces (Baker, 2025; Evans et al., 2025). This inter-agency vacuum delayed critical reporting and paralyzed local reserves, leading to the piecemeal destruction of Russian reinforcing columns (Baker, 2025; Zabrodskyi et al., 2022). Cohesion was only restored after the Kremlin declared a Counter-Terrorist Operation (CTO) and centralized military command under Colonel-General Alexander Lapin’s Northern Grouping of Forces (Evans et al., 2025).

Movement and Maneuver

The Movement and Maneuver function integrates forces to gain positions of relative advantage over the enemy through fires and operational movement (Department of the Army, 2025). In modern multi-domain operations, maneuver is not merely spatial displacement; it is the physical manifestation of combined-arms synchronization designed to dislocate enemy formations and break their operational coherence (Department of the Army, 2025; Ryan, 2024b).

The opening phase of the Ukrainian offensive demonstrated a fluid, combined-arms maneuver breakthrough that punctured the prevailing assumption of a static, defensive-dominant battlespace (Jones et al., 2023; Baker, 2025). The AFU organized elite elements, including the 80th and 82nd Air Assault Brigades alongside the 22nd and 61st Mechanized Brigades, into rapid assault detachments supported by dedicated engineering breaching systems (Baker, 2025). Equipped with highly mobile Western and indigenous armor, such as American-made Strykers, German Marders, and Ukrainian BTR-4s, Ukrainian reconnaissance units advanced rapidly down key roadway axes, such as the 38K-030 highway (Baker, 2025). Rather than assaulting prepared Russian strongpoints directly, they bypassed them, cutting off escape routes, isolating garrisons, and driving operational spearheads deep into Russian rear areas (Baker, 2025). During the first three weeks, Ukrainian forces advanced at rates exceeding 1,200 meters per day, an operational tempo unseen in this conflict since the Kharkiv counteroffensive in late 2022 (Jones & McCabe, 2025). This operational velocity stood in stark contrast to the attritional baseline of the broader theater, where Russian mechanized offensives in the Donbas crawled forward at an average pace of approximately 70 meters per day (Jones & McCabe, 2024).

However, the laws of operational movement and culmination inevitably asserted themselves (Ryan, 2024b). As the Ukrainian forward units pushed deeper toward Korenevo, Rylsk, and the approaches to the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant in Kurchatov, their maneuver lines expanded (Baker, 2025). The deeper the spearheads reached, the wider their vulnerable flanks grew, forcing the Ukrainian general staff to divert scarce maneuver battalions simply to screen their sides and protect critical ground lines of communication. (Baker, 2025).

When the Russian military recovered from its initial shock and brought heavy armored reserves into play, the fluid offensive reached its operational culmination point and ground to a halt (Evans et al., 2025; Baker, 2025). Ukrainian forces found themselves defending an exposed irregular salient, transforming dynamic maneuver into an attrition-heavy, static defense against converging Russian counteroffensives (Evans et al., 2025; Baker, 2025).

For their part, Russian forces executed maneuver poorly in the opening weeks (Baker, 2025). Reinforcements sent to stem the breach were deployed in hasty, uncoordinated road columns without proper reconnaissance or counter-drone screening (Baker, 2025). Ukrainian ambushes, forward drone screens, and precision HIMARS rocket strikes destroyed entire convoys along the Rylsk-Korenevo corridors, replicating the doctrinal and tactical blunders that characterized Russian road-bound movements in early 2022 (Baker, 2025; Zabrodskyi et al., 2022).

However, by late autumn 2024, the Russian maneuver approach had adapted (Evans et al., 2025). Massing combat-experienced formations, most notably the 810th and 155th Naval Infantry Brigades and elite VDV Airborne divisions, the Russian military conducted sequential, heavy armored counter-maneuvers against the shoulders of the Ukrainian forces (Evans et al., 2025; Baker, 2025). Using thermal-cloaked "turtle tanks" and armored personnel carriers shielded against conventional radiofrequency FPV drone attacks. Russian forces absorbed defensive fire and applied steady, concentrated pressure to the western flank near Lyubimovka (Evans et al., 2025; Watling & Reynolds, 2025). This heavy combined-arms assault systematically collapsed the pocket, severed secondary transit lines, and squeezed Ukrainian forces backward toward the international boundary (Evans et al., 2025; Ryan, 2024b).

Intelligence

The Intelligence warfighting function facilitates understanding of enemy capabilities, terrain, civilian demographics, and the electromagnetic spectrum (Department of the Army, 2025).

The Kursk operation will be studied as an intelligence coup for Ukraine and a strategic intelligence failure for the Russian Federation (Baker, 2025). The AFU achieved operational surprise on a supposedly "transparent battlefield" through disciplined sensor deception and systematic physical disruption (Darwish, 2025; Madden, 2025; Ryan, 2024b). In the weeks preceding the assault, Ukrainian forces conducted systematic strikes against Russian border surveillance architecture (Baker, 2025). First-person view (FPV) kamikaze drones, supported by precision rocket artillery, systematically destroyed optical reconnaissance masts, Murom-M long-range surveillance cameras, and counter-battery radar towers along the border perimeter, effectively blinding Russian tactical garrisons prior to H-Hour (Baker, 2025; Darwish, 2025).

Simultaneously, Ukrainian intelligence leveraged commercial and allied satellite imagery, synthetic aperture radar (SAR), and signals intelligence (SIGINT) to construct an accurate operational picture of the Russian disposition (Darwish, 2025; Baker, 2025). Ukrainian planners accurately identified the exact boundaries separating poorly equipped, eighteen-year-old Russian conscripts from irregular Chechen "Akhmat" territorial units, isolating key organizational seams in the defensive layout (Baker, 2025). This intelligence enabled assault brigades to breach the line with minimal initial friction and bypass fortified clusters (Baker, 2025).

In contrast, the Russian intelligence apparatus failed discern the scale, intent, and operational character of the operation (Baker, 2025). Russian intelligence assets had detected Ukrainian movements and equipment build-ups in Sumy Oblast weeks before August, but military leadership dismissed these warnings (Baker, 2025). They assumed the Ukrainian concentrations were defensive preparations designed to parry a theoretical Russian cross-border drive toward Sumy city, or at most, a small cross-border raid by Russian volunteer proxy units (Baker, 2025). This institutional dismissal mirrored the cognitive biases documented by Zabrodskyi et al. (2022) during the February 2022 invasion, wherein the Russian security apparatus proved structurally vulnerable to deception due to rigid preconceived assumptions and a culture that discouraged reporting inconvenient intelligence up the chain of command (Watling & Reynolds, 2025; Zabrodskyi et al., 2022). In reality, the Ukraine was not depleted in manpower and materiel and mounted a strategic offensive that blinded Moscow's high command to the reality taking shape on the border (Baker, 2025).

Only after weeks of operational turmoil did Russian intelligence regain its situational awareness (Watling & Reynolds, 2025). The Russian military deployed medium-altitude reconnaissance drones, such as the ZALA 421-16E, the Supercam S350, and the Orlan-30, equipped with advanced optical and thermal payloads operating above the effective ceiling of Ukrainian tactical short-range electronic jamming (Evans et al., 2025; Watling & Reynolds, 2025). As detailed in analyses of Russian drone innovation, these aerial reconnaissance assets directly integrated into automated reconnaissance-strike complexes (RUK), streaming real-time coordinates down to Russian strike aviation, Iskander-M ballistic missile batteries, and tube artillery (Evans et al., 2025; Watling & Reynolds, 2025). This persistent aerial surveillance systematically exposed Ukrainian assembly areas, ammunition caches, and logistical arteries, effectively dismantling Ukraine's initial information advantage (Evans et al., 2025; Watling & Reynolds, 2025).

Fires

The Fires warfighting function coordinates the collective and coordinated use of Army indirect fires, joint fires, and offensive cyber/electronic capabilities against target systems (Department of the Army, 2025).

The fires battle in the Kursk salient was marked by a clash of operational philosophies: Ukrainian speed, agility, and precision versus Russian mass, standoff bombardment, and industrial scale (Darwish, 2025; Jones & McCabe, 2026). In the opening days, Ukrainian fires operated with lethal agility (Darwish, 2025). M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) launchers firing GPS-guided Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) munitions struck Russian command posts, supply junctions, and defensive positions in depth (Baker, 2025). Ukrainian precision fires systematically isolated the Glushkovo district south of the Seim River by systematically destroying permanent concrete bridges and subsequently targeting the pontoon crossings and engineering assets Russian forces who rushed to deploy (Baker, 2025). Simultaneously, tactical FPV strike drones acted as highly responsive, forward-deployed flying artillery, neutralizing individual Russian tanks, armored fighting vehicles, and defensive positions with pinpoint precision (Baker, 2025; Watling & Reynolds, 2025).

On the electronic battlefield, Ukraine initially dominated the electromagnetic spectrum (Darwish, 2025). Advancing mechanized formations integrated advanced, vehicle-mounted, and man-portable electronic warfare (EW) systems that disrupted the radio-frequency control of analog video downlinks of Russian commercial quadcopters and tactical loitering munitions (Baker, 2025; Watling & Reynolds, 2025). This electromagnetic shield severed Russian forward observers from their supporting artillery echelons, leaving Russian front-line troops without responsive aerial observation in the critical first seventy-two hours of the penetration (Baker, 2025; Darwish, 2025).

However, the balance of fires shifted once the Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS) and heavy artillery divisions (Evans et al., 2025; Baker, 2025). Operating at high altitudes well outside the engagement envelopes and radar horizons of forward Ukrainian tactical air defense batteries, concentrated their combat power against the salient Russian Su-34 strike aircraft launched hundreds of Universal Glide and Correction Module (UMPK) satellite-guided glide bombs (Baker, 2025). These standoff munitions, ranging from the 500-kilogram FAB-500 to the massive three-ton FAB-3000, struck Ukrainian forward operating bases, tree-line trench systems, and logistics nodes with overwhelming blast overpressure, destroying defensive field fortifications and collapsing civilian infrastructure used for cover (Baker, 2025; Evans et al., 2025).

Crucially, the Russian defense industrial base introduced a decisive technological shift to counter Ukrainian electronic warfare: mass-produced fiber-optic guided FPV drones, such as the Knyaz Vandal of Novgorod (Baker, 2025; Watling & Reynolds, 2025). By dispensing an ultrathin spool of fiber-optic wire up to twenty kilometers behind the drone, these systems eliminated the traditional radio-frequency link entirely (Watling & Reynolds, 2025). This physical tether conferred two transformative operational advantages: it rendered the drone completely immune to Ukrainian electromagnetic jamming, and it transmitted an uncompressed, crystal-clear digital optical feed impervious to signal degradation or electronic interference (Evans et al., 2025). Deploying these systems in coordinated hunter-killer teams, Russian forces achieved devastating Battlefield Air Interdiction (BAI) effects along the primary paved corridors feeding Sudzha, systematically destroying moving Ukrainian armor, resupply convoys, and engineering recovery vehicles (Evans et al., 2025; Watling & Reynolds, 2025).

Sustainment

The Sustainment warfighting function provides support and services to ensure freedom of action, extend operational reach, and prolong endurance (Department of the Army, 2025). In high-intensity expeditionary maneuver, operational reach is fundamentally governed by the capacity to protect distribution networks and sustain high consumption rates of Class III (petroleum, oil, and lubricants), Class V (ammunition), and specialized maintenance materiel under continuous enemy observation (Department of the Army, 2025; Ryan, 2024b).

Sustainment emerged as the decisive operational vulnerability that ultimately unraveled Ukraine's ability to maintain the Kursk salient (Baker, 2025). Sustaining a multi-brigade combined-arms offensive inside foreign sovereign territory required immense logistical throughput: thousands of gallons of diesel fuel, diverse classes of artillery and mortar rounds, specialized repair parts for disparate Western-supplied and Soviet-era platforms, and steady medical evacuation corridors (Baker, 2025).

As the operational tempo slowed and the frontline stabilized, Ukrainian supply lines converged onto a few vulnerable asphalt road axes connecting Sumy Oblast to the forward logistical hub established in Sudzha, most notably the H-07/R-200 highway corridor (Baker, 2025; Evans et al., 2025). These narrow transit corridors quickly became lethal bottlenecks (Baker, 2025; Watling & Reynolds, 2025).

Russian operational fires transformed these approach corridors into a textbook campaign of Battlefield Air Interdiction (BAI) (Evans et al., 2025). Coordinated strikes utilizing long-range rocket artillery, standoff glide bombs, and unjammable fiber-optic FPV drone hunter-killer teams established a persistent logistical "kill zone" extending ten to fifteen kilometers behind the forward line of own troops (Evans et al., 2025; Watling & Reynolds, 2025). Within this interdiction zone, unarmored logistics trucks, fuel tankers, and engineering equipment were systematically detected and engaged, rendering daylight resupply convoys virtually suicidal (Evans et al., 2025). Consequently, forward Ukrainian assault battalions suffered acute shortages of heavy artillery ammunition and vehicle fuel, while the inability to safely evacuate wounded personnel or recover immobilized combat vehicles caused operational equipment attrition to mount precipitously (Baker, 2025; Evans et al., 2025; Watling & Reynolds, 2025).

In contrast, the Russian armed forces operated with the structural advantage of robust interior lines of communication (Zabrodskyi et al., 2022). While the destruction of the Seim River bridges created localized logistical friction in Glushkovo, the Russian military drew directly on the vast infrastructure of its Western Military District (Baker, 2025). Dense rail networks, regional fuel pipelines, hardened ammunition depots, and military airbases in Belgorod, Bryansk, Kursk city, and Voronezh fed an uninterrupted stream of supplies directly into the theater (Zabrodskyi et al., 2022). Despite high material losses, the Russian defense-industrial base provided a steady flow of replacement armor, artillery ammunition, and strike drones directly to the counter-offensive grouping, granting Russian forces an endurance advantage that Ukraine’s constrained, interdicted exterior pipeline could not match over a protracted operational timeline (Jones & McCabe, 2026; Watling & Reynolds, 2025).

Protection

The Protection warfighting function preserves the force so the commander can apply maximum combat power to accomplish the mission. It encompasses survivability operations, air and missile defense, chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) defense, physical security, and operational area security designed to protect personnel, systems, and physical infrastructure from enemy detection and destruction (Department of the Army, 2025).

Force protection in the Kursk Campaign highlighted the vulnerabilities expeditionary militaries face when attempting to shield maneuvering elements without air superiority (Evans et al., 2025; Watling & Reynolds, 2025). During the initial offensive phase, Ukraine achieved tactical force protection by embedding short-range air defense (SHORAD) systems directly within its mobile assault echelons (Baker, 2025). Self-propelled autocannons, such as the German Flakpanzer Gepard, along with vehicle-mounted Strela-10s and man-portable air-defense systems (MANPADS), accompanied the vanguard (Baker, 2025). This forward mobile shield was remarkably effective against low-flying threats, destroying Russian Ka-52 attack helicopters and Su-25 ground-attack aircraft during the first 72 hours of the breach (Baker, 2025).

However, this forward tactical air-defense umbrella could not protect against threats from the upper atmosphere (Evans et al., 2025; Watling & Reynolds, 2025). Ukraine lacked sufficient quantities of strategic long-range surface-to-air missile systems, such as American-manufactured Patriot PAC-2/3 or the European SAMP/T,, to position them within operational range of the border without exposing these scarce, multi-million-dollar platforms to Russian reconnaissance drones and ballistic missile strikes (Evans et al., 2025; Watling & Reynolds, 2025).

As a consequence, the medium-and high-altitude skies over the Kursk pocket belonged almost uncontested to Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS) strike aircraft dropping heavy standoff glide bombs (Baker, 2025; Evans et al., 2025). Ukrainian frontline infantry and assault engineers were forced to dig field fortifications and construct survivability positions under relentless, uninhibited aerial bombardment (Baker, 2025; Watling & Reynolds, 2025). The blast effects of 500- to 3,000-kilogram precision glide bombs routinely collapsed basements, obliterated reinforced trench works, and degraded soldier morale and combat capability over months of sustained defense (Baker, 2025; Evans et al., 2025).

For the Russian Federation, a systemic and catastrophic initial failure of force protection, characterized by shallow anti-tank ditches, undermanned concrete pillboxes, and unmined primary paved axes (Baker, 2025; Ryan, 2024a; Zabrodskyi et al., 2022), rapidly evolved into a highly effective, layered defense as the frontline stabilized (Evans et al., 2025; Jones et al., 2023). Leveraging automated remote-mining systems like the ISDM Zemledeliye, Russian rocket artillery scattered dense fields of anti-tank and anti-personnel mines behind Ukrainian forward elements (Jones et al., 2023; Watling & Reynolds, 2025). This rapid seeding severely restricted Ukrainian tactical mobility, pinned logistics convoys to exposed roadways, and sealed open flanks in what has become the most heavily mined theater in modern history (Evans et al., 2025; Jones & McCabe, 2024). Simultaneously, Russia’s dense, layered integrated air defense system (IADS), combining deep-country S-400 batteries with mobile Buk-M3, Tor-M2, and Pantsir-S1 systems, created an impenetrable anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) envelope that denied the Ukrainian Air Force the ability to conduct close air support or deploy standoff munitions to shield its exposed ground forces (Watling & Reynolds, 2025; Zabrodskyi et al., 2022).

Strategic and Operational Counterfactual: Alternative Employment Across the Warfighting Functions to Retain Captured Terrain

A central historiographical question arising from the 2024 Kursk campaign is whether the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) could have consolidated and sustained durable operational control over the captured lodgment rather than succumbing to gradual compression by massed Russian counteroffensives (Baker, 2025; Ryan, 2024a). In classical operational art, the culmination point represents the precise threshold where the attacker’s combat power no longer exceeds that of the defender, mandating an immediate transition to the defense before the initiative is forfeit (Department of the Army, 2025; Ryan, 2024b). Ukraine’s eventual loss of operational initiative was not an inevitable outcome of Russian numerical superiority, but rather the consequence of an operational design that failed to synchronize a deliberate transition from exploitation to positional defense across the warfighting functions (Baker, 2025; Evans et al., 2025).

To achieve long-term retention of the Kursk salient as an enduring operational redoubt and diplomatic bargaining asset, Ukrainian planners would have required a fundamentally different operational approach, one calibrated to terminate offensive movement at culmination, establish natural geographic anchors, and optimize defensive economy-of-force (Department of the Army, 2025; Jones & McCabe, 2024).

Movement and Maneuver Counterfactual

In the Movement and Maneuver warfighting function, Ukraine’s foundational error lay in allowing its vanguard formations to dissipate combat power along divergent, uncoordinated axes toward Korenevo, Rylsk, and Kurchatov long after the window of operational surprise had closed (Baker, 2025; Ryan, 2024b). This opportunistic pursuit overextended mobile spearheads across an irregular, porous perimeter exceeding 100 kilometers, creating severe force-to-space deficits that left elite air assault brigades pinned in localized skirmishes and unable to secure their rapidly lengthening flanks (Baker, 2025; Evans et al., 2025; Watling & Reynolds, 2025). To retain the lodgment, the AFU should have mandated a hard operational pause by Day 14 (August 20, 2024), as Russian reserves arrived and the Seim River bridges were dropped, and transitioned immediately into an Area Defense (Baker, 2025; Department of the Army, 2025; Evans et al., 2025).

By anchoring its northern and western boundaries along the southern bank of the Seim and Psel rivers, the AFU could have exploited a major wet-gap obstacle to block Russian armored counterattacks (Baker, 2025; Evans et al., 2025). This geographic contraction would have halved the active perimeter to approximately 50-55 kilometers, doubling troop density and allowing engineers to construct dense, layered obstacle belts of anti-tank ditches, dragon's teeth, and minefields before Russian ISR networks fully reconstituted (Baker, 2025; Evans et al., 2025; Jones & McCabe, 2024; Zabrodskyi et al., 2022). Ultimately, this consolidated footprint would have allowed the AFU to withdraw its premier mechanized and air assault brigades from static frontline holding actions, rotating them into Sumy Oblast to serve as an agile, off-axis operational reserve dedicated to counter-penetration operations (Department of the Army, 2025; Ryan, 2024b).

Protection Counterfactual

Within the Protection warfighting function, Ukraine’s principal error lay in treating the Kursk incursion as a temporary maneuver raid rather than an enduring territorial lodgment requiring immediate, industrial-scale survivability and counter-mobility operations (Baker, 2025; Ryan, 2024a). Relying on hasty, field-expedient entrenchments offered negligible protection against massed artillery and heavy aerial bombardment (Baker, 2025; Evans et al., 2025). To ensure long-term survivability, the Ukrainian state should have mobilized civilian infrastructure firms and military engineering units by Day 3 of the offensive to construct a fortified redoubt modeled after Russia's "Surovikin Line" (Evans et al., 2025; Jones et al., 2023; Ryan, 2024b; Zabrodskyi et al., 2022). This required the rapid excavation of continuous anti-tank ditches, the emplacement of multi-row dragon's teeth, and the installation of subterranean concrete bunkers capable of absorbing the severe blast overpressure of 500- to 1,500-kilogram Russian UMPK glide bombs (Baker, 2025; Evans et al., 2025).

Furthermore, to shield the vulnerable logistics arteries connecting Sumy to Sudzha from unjammable, fiber-optic-guided First-Person View (FPV) drones, engineers should have constructed physical counter-drone infrastructure, such as overhead steel wire-mesh screens and false canopies (Evans et al., 2025; Watling & Reynolds, 2025). This physical shielding would have degraded Russian Battlefield Air Interdiction (BAI), neutralized tactical hunter-killer teams within the forward ten-kilometer kill zone, and preserved resupply and medical evacuation assets (Evans et al., 2025; Watling & Reynolds, 2025).

Finally, rather than exposing irreplaceable Patriot batteries directly within the salient, the AFU should have deployed mobile, medium-range SAM systems, such as NASAMS or upgraded Buk-M1 units, in highly dispersed, concealed positions just south of the border in Sumy Oblast (Baker, 2025; Evans et al., 2025; Watling & Reynolds, 2025). Networked with remote, passive sensors and intermittently active radar nodes, these systems could have established an anti-access ambush corridor to intercept Russian Su-34 strike aircraft prior to their glide-bomb release points, contesting the high-altitude airspace sanctuary that ultimately dismantled Ukraine’s defenses (Evans et al., 2025; Watling & Reynolds, 2025).

Fires Counterfactual

Within the Fires warfighting function, Ukraine’s counterfactual success depended on an aggressive offensive counter-reconnaissance and deep-interdiction campaign designed to sever Russian reconnaissance-strike complexes (RUK) and starve their counteroffensive of momentum (Department of the Army, 2025; Evans et al., 2025). Rather than employing fires reactively against frontline armor, the AFU should have utilized its precision-strike and electronic warfare (EW) assets offensively to blind Russian operational sensors and interdict rear assembly areas (Baker, 2025; Watling & Reynolds, 2025).

First, the AFU should have deployed high-mobility, FPV drone-interceptor detachments along the border to hunt and neutralize medium-altitude Russian reconnaissance UAVs, including the Orlan-30, ZALA, and Supercam S350 (Evans et al., 2025; Watling & Reynolds, 2025). Systematically destroying these aerial platforms would have severed the real-time target acquisition link to Russian heavy artillery and missile units, effectively dismantling Moscow's capability to coordinate responsive fires against Ukrainian transit corridors (Evans et al., 2025; Watling & Reynolds, 2025).

Second, instead of diluting precision rocket systems (HIMARS/MLRS) in tactical close-support roles, the AFU should have consolidated these assets to execute a deep interdiction campaign against rail-to-road transshipment nodes, ammunition depots, and command posts in neighboring Belgorod, Kursk, and Voronezh Oblasts (Baker, 2025; Evans et al., 2025; Zabrodskyi et al., 2022). Forcing Russian logistics to transition to dispersed, low-throughput truck transport deep in their rear would have severely delayed the concentration of ammunition and armored reserves required to mount counter-maneuvers (Zabrodskyi et al., 2022).

Finally, to counter Russia’s unjammable, fiber-optic-guided FPV drones, Ukrainian EW assets should have focused high-power jamming on the radio-frequency control and video downlinks of the Russian reconnaissance drones acting as aerial motherships and relays (Evans et al., 2025; Watling & Reynolds, 2025). Blinding these critical aerial relays would have drastically degraded the effective operational range and targeting precision of Russia's fiber-optic strike systems, preserving a favorable fires balance across the salient (Evans et al., 2025; Watling & Reynolds, 2025).

Intelligence Counterfactual

Within the Intelligence warfighting function, Ukraine’s post-breach operations suffered from a failure to transition from offensive sensor disruption to persistent, defensive Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield (Department of the Army, 2025). Following the seizure of Sudzha, military intelligence (HUR) remained optimized for tactical tracking along forward corridors rather than deep, predictive surveillance of massing Russian operational reserves (Baker, 2025; Ryan, 2024b). Consequently, the AFU failed to anticipate the rapid concentration of Russian naval infantry and airborne units against the salient’s exposed western shoulder near Lyubimovka (Baker, 2025; Evans et al., 2025).

To ensure long-term retention of the lodgment, the AFU should have restructured its collection architecture to monitor the operational depth of the Russian rear, specifically targeting railheads and transshipment hubs in Kursk, Belgorod, and Voronezh Oblasts (Evans et al., 2025; Zabrodskyi et al., 2022). Tasking commercial synthetic aperture radar (SAR), SIGINT intercept arrays, and long-range aerial reconnaissance to monitor the Western Military District’s rail network would have detected approaching heavy armor echelons days before tactical deployment (Baker, 2025; Zabrodskyi et al., 2022). This predictive target development would have granted decisive early warning to pre-emptively mass precision fires and shift mobile anti-tank reserves to threatened sectors before Russian breaching operations commenced (Department of the Army, 2025; Evans et al., 2025).

Furthermore, an alternative intelligence posture would have actively isolated the distinct electronic footprints and command protocols of incoming North Korean (KPA) expeditionary forces (Evans et al., 2025; Watling & Reynolds, 2025). Exploiting these communications seams would have allowed the AFU to target the critical liaison nodes linking Russian divisional headquarters to foreign units, inducing command paralysis within the counteroffensive grouping (Evans et al., 2025).

Finally, rear-area security required an immediate, systematic telecommunications blackout inside the occupied territory (Baker, 2025; Ryan, 2024a). Because the AFU left Russian commercial cellular networks active, local residents and stay-behind security personnel easily transmitted Ukrainian troop coordinates via encrypted messaging apps (Baker, 2025). Severing all Russian commercial fiber-optic cables and cellular base stations upon seizing Sudzha would have suppressed this real-time HUMINT stream, shielding Ukrainian staging facilities and supply lines from targeted Russian missile and drone strikes (Baker, 2025; Evans et al., 2025; Ryan, 2024b; Watling & Reynolds, 2025).

Sustainment Counterfactual

Within the Sustainment warfighting function, maintaining the Kursk salient required an immediate doctrinal departure from the vulnerable, "just-in-time" distribution model that characterized Ukrainian logistics (Department of the Army, 2025; Ryan, 2024b). Ukraine’s central vulnerability was its reliance on daily, daylight truck convoys traversing predictable cross-border corridors like the H-07/R-200 highway, which quickly became static funnels easily interdicted by Russian reconnaissance and fiber-optic strike drones (Baker, 2025; Evans et al., 2025).

To ensure long-term viability, Ukrainian planners should have executed a massive, front-loaded "push-and-cache" campaign during the first 14 to 21 days of the offensive, exploiting early Russian paralysis to surge and disperse 30 to 45 days of operational reserves into the lodgment (Baker, 2025; Department of the Army, 2025; Zabrodskyi et al., 2022). By utilizing Sudzha's industrial cellars, rail facilities, and concrete basements, engineers could have established hardened, subterranean micro-depots for fuel, ammunition, and medical stores (Baker, 2025; Evans et al., 2025). Hardening these storage sites would have decoupled forward combat formations from vulnerable surface highways, neutralizing the logistical paralysis caused by Russian air interdiction (Evans et al., 2025; Watling & Reynolds, 2025).

Furthermore, the AFU needed to fundamentally restructure distribution across the contested "last tactical mile", the lethal 10-to-15-kilometer zone dominated by Russian fiber-optic Knyaz Vandal of Novgorod strike drones (Evans et al., 2025; Watling & Reynolds, 2025). Sustainment units should have banned daylight wheeled transport entirely, transitioning to strict nocturnal resupply cycles executed by low-profile, electric-drive autonomous Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs) and heavy-lift cargo drones navigating off-road trajectories (Evans et al., 2025; Watling & Reynolds, 2025). Integrating these autonomous systems for forward delivery and backward casualty evacuation (CASEVAC) would have halted the catastrophic attrition of soft-skinned transport trucks, preserving combat personnel and sustaining frontline morale (Evans et al., 2025; Watling & Reynolds, 2025).

Finally, an alternative sustainment posture required establishing forward-deployed, subterranean maintenance and recovery workshops within Sudzha's industrial zones (Department of the Army, 2025; Ryan, 2024a). Because the AFU operated a highly heterogeneous fleet (Strykers, Marders, BTR-4s, and Soviet tanks), minor mechanical failures or mine damage often led to the permanent abandonment of valuable platforms due to the impossibility of towing them back across the border under persistent drone surveillance (Baker, 2025; Watling & Reynolds, 2025). Pre-positioning specialized parts, machine shops, and heavy recovery vehicles (such as the M88A2 or Bergepanzer) inside the salient would have allowed rapid repair of mobility-damaged armor, preserving brigade combat readiness without clogging external routes (Department of the Army, 2025; Evans et al., 2025).

Command and Control Counterfactual

Within the Command and Control warfighting function, Ukraine’s most consequential operational shortcoming was the failure to codify a singular, unambiguous strategic end-state before initiating cross-border operations (Department of the Army, 2025; Madden, 2025). Operational direction fluctuated between competing rationales: an expeditionary psychological raid, a bid to capture the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant, a cross-border buffer zone, and an open-ended maneuver offensive to seize diplomatic bargaining leverage (Baker, 2025; Ryan, 2024a). This strategic ambiguity directly infected the tactical echelon; despite the brilliant execution of decentralized mission command during the initial breach, the absence of explicit operational termination criteria left brigade and battalion commanders probing opportunistically along divergent axes rather than consolidating defensible positions once the advantage of surprise had elapsed (Baker, 2025; Darwish, 2025).

To ensure durable retention of the lodgment, the General Staff should have established a dedicated Joint Task Force (JTF) Kursk headquarters with a singular operational mandate: orchestrate the rapid transition from offensive exploitation into an enduring, fortified redoubt (Department of the Army, 2025; Evans et al., 2025). Under this refined command structure, the Commander's Intent would have explicitly mandated a transition to a positional, economy-of-force defense by approximately Day 14, establishing the southern bank of the Seim River and Sudzha as the non-negotiable defensive limit of advance (Baker, 2025; Evans et al., 2025). Centralizing operational coordination under a single theater headquarters would have eliminated the lateral friction that occurred when multiple elite brigades, operating under separate command chains, competed for the same narrow cross-border logistics arteries and precision-fire allocations (Baker, 2025; Watling & Reynolds, 2025).

By anchoring this unified C2 architecture to an explicit cost-imposition strategy, the AFU could have leveraged the political psychology of the Kremlin to its operational advantage (Evans et al., 2025; Ryan, 2024a). Because the presence of foreign troops on sovereign Russian soil represented an intolerable political humiliation for Moscow, Russian leadership was compelled to prioritize the rapid expulsion of Ukrainian forces over operational prudence (Baker, 2025; Evans et al., 2025). A unified Ukrainian theater headquarters could have exploited this political imperative, deliberately structuring the salient’s defensive geometry to draw massed Russian regional reserves and North Korean expeditionary units into heavily fortified, pre-sighted kill zones (Evans et al., 2025; Zabrodskyi et al., 2022). Subordinating tactical maneuver to a disciplined attritional strategy would have inflicted disproportionate casualty and materiel exchange ratios upon the Russian grouping, blunting Moscow's theater-wide operational momentum and preserving Ukrainian defensive integrity in the critical Pokrovsk-Toretsk sectors of the Donbas while maintaining a crucial territorial pawn for future political negotiations (Baker, 2025; Evans et al., 2025; Jones & McCabe, 2024).

Conclusion

The 2024-2025 Kursk Campaign stands as an exceptionally instructive case study in contemporary high-intensity combined-arms warfare (Baker, 2025; Darwish, 2025). By penetrating deep into Russian sovereign territory, the Armed Forces of Ukraine demonstrated that even within a highly transparent operating environment characterized by dense electronic networks, continuous orbital sensor coverage, and ubiquitous strike drones, an imaginative commander can still achieve decisive operational surprise (Darwish, 2025; Evans et al., 2025; Ryan, 2024b). Through strict operational security, disciplined multi-domain deception, and aggressive decentralized mission command, the initial breakthrough temporarily shattered the narrative of inescapable positional stagnation and reaffirmed the persistent relevance of dynamic, offensive maneuver in modern operational art (Baker, 2025; Evans et al., 2025; Ryan, 2024a).

Yet, the campaign’s eventual stagnation and costly contraction underscored an enduring, immutable military reality: tactical brilliance and initial operational surprise cannot permanently overcome systemic deficits in strategic mass, logistics, protection, and air defense (Baker, 2025; Evans et al., 2025; Jones & McCabe, 2024). When deep operational maneuvers lack the organic capacity to defend captured territory against high-altitude standoff aerial bombardment, secure extended lines of communication against emerging fiber-optic drone technologies, and sustain combat power over a protracted timeline, even the boldest breakthroughs risk devolving into exhausting positional engagements of attrition (Baker, 2025; Evans et al., 2025; Watling & Reynolds, 2025).

For modern armed forces analyzing the future of peer-level conflict, the Kursk salient serves as a clear warning that achieving an operational advantage is only half the battle; sustaining, protecting, and anchoring that advantage under a saturated sky and on a transparent battlefield remains the central challenge of modern war (Evans et al., 2025; Watling & Reynolds, 2025).

References

Baker, S. (2025, January 11). Ukraine gambled big in its daring assault into Russia's Kursk. Was it worth the risk? Business Insider. https://www.businessinsider.com/was-ukraine-risky-attack-of-russias-kursk-region-worth-it-2025-1

Darwish, A. (2025). Ukrainian military tech timeline and analysis (2022-2025). Bloomsbury Intelligence & Security Institute. https://bisi.org.uk/reports/ukrainian-military-tech-timeline-and-analysis-20222025

Department of the Army. (2022). Operations (Field Manual 3-0). Headquarters, Department of the Army. https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_a/ARN36290-FM_3-0-000-WEB-2.pdf

Evans, A., Hird, K., Mappes, G., Wolkov, N., Harward, C., & Kagan, F. W. (2025).Ukraine’s Kursk incursion: Six month assessment. Institute for the Study of War. https://understandingwar.org/research/russia-ukraine/ukraines-kursk-incursion-six-month-assessment-2/

Jones, S. G., & McCabe, R. (2025). Russia’s battlefield woes in Ukraine. Center for Strategic and International Studies. https://www.csis.org/analysis/russias-battlefield-woes-ukraine

Jones, S. G., & McCabe, R. (2026). Russia-Ukraine war in 10 charts. Center for Strategic and International Studies. https://www.csis.org/analysis/russia-ukraine-war-10-charts

Jones, S. G., McCabe, R., & Palmer, A. (2023). Seizing the initiative in Ukraine: Waging war in a defense dominant world. Center for Strategic and International Studies. https://www.csis.org/analysis/seizing-initiative-ukraine-waging-war-defense-dominant-world

Madden, J. (2025). Innovation and adaptation: Lessons from the Russia-Ukraine war, 2024.Parameters: The US Army War College Quarterly, 55(1), 25-39. https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/

Ryan, M. (2024). The battle of Kursk 2024.Russia Matters, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School. https://www.russiamatters.org/blog/battle-kursk-2024

Ryan, M. (2024).The Big Five: Assessing the operational limits of the Kursk campaign. Lowy Institute for International Policy. https://www.lowyinstitute.org/external-publications/analysis-battle-kursk-2024

Watling, J., & Reynolds, N. (2025).Russian drone innovations are likely achieving effects of battlefield air interdiction in Ukraine. Institute for the Study of War. https://understandingwar.org/research/russia-ukraine/russian-drone-innovations-are-likely-achieving-effects-of-battlefield-air-interdiction-in-ukraine/

Zabrodskyi, M., Watling, J., Danylyuk, O. V., & Reynolds, N. (2022). Preliminary lessons in conventional warfighting from Russia's invasion of Ukraine: February-July 2022. Royal United Services Institute (RUSI). https://static.rusi.org/359-SR-Ukraine-Preliminary-Lessons-Feb-July-2022-web-final.pdf

© 2026 Dr. Robert Nelson and SGM Benjamin Pingel

Dr. Robert A. Nelson, Command Sergeant Major, US Army (retired), is the Department of Army Operations Department chair at the Sergeants Major Course, Fort Bliss, Texas. He served thirty years in the Army and held leadership positions ranging from squad leader to battalion command sergeant major. He made operational deployments to Kuwait, Haiti, and Honduras. He holds a doctorate in education from Vanderbilt University.

Sgt. Maj. Benjamin Pingel, US Army, is the Department of Army Operations Department chief instructor at the Sergeants Major Academy, Fort Bliss Texas. He has served in the Army for twenty-eight years and held leadership positions from tank commander to brigade command sergeant major. He had served combat and operational deployments to Afghanistan, Kuwait, Jordan, Poland, and Romania. He holds a graduate degree in education from Pennsylvania State University.

* Views expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily represent those of MilitaryHistoryOnline.com.