Kyiv has said little about its rapid entry into Russia’s Kursk region, only confirming involvement on Saturday.
It seemingly caught Moscow by surprise: In just days, Ukrainian forces have gained control of what army chief Oleksandr Syrskyi has claimed to total 1,000 square kilometres of Russian soil, as of Monday.
How did it happen? While Kyiv has not elaborated, across the border in Russia, military commentators have been rumbling that Ukrainian forces skilfully used drones and jammers to limit Russia’s defences and break into Kursk.
Some outside observers say this view seems to make sense, while cautioning that those same commentators may only be able to see a slice of the wider picture.
“It does seem plausible,” said Samuel Bendett, an adviser with the Russia Studies program at CNA, a safety and security think-tank in Washington, D.C.
Soaring drone use
Drones have become increasingly critical to both Russia and Ukraine across nearly 30 months of all-out war in Ukraine. They are used everywhere — from the trenches of the front line, to the skies above interior areas of the two countries.
Ukraine, which has created a drone warfare-focused branch of its military, has used drones to destroy Russian tanks, hit warplanes and other military targets, in addition to using longer-range drone models to strike oil and gas facilities far beyond the border.
And it’s likewise felt the sting of Russian drones that have killed Ukrainian soldiers and civilians alike, and have damaged infrastructure including power plants.
For Ukraine, relying on technologies like drones has been a way for it to punch above its weight in its fight with Russia.
“We have everything to win the war against the Russian Federation. Everything to replace a person in the trench, at sea, in the air and underwater,” said Ivan Havryliuk, a deputy defence minister, in remarks reported by ABC News earlier this year.
Ukrainian forces heading into Russia’s Kursk region drove through a border checkpoint in Ukraine’s Sumy region on Tuesday. The crossing, which was previously under Russian control, was recently recaptured by Ukraine.
Along the front line, troops from both sides are constrained by the hovering threat of the drones above. Small, first-person view (FPV) drones are routinely used to hunt individual soldiers.
Yet these same obstacles did not stop Ukraine from advancing into Kursk, raising the question of how.
A handful of published reports — some citing the observations of Russian war bloggers — suggests that Ukraine used drones and signal-jamming devices to down Russian surveillance capabilities and then attack the ground ahead, as Ukraine’s own troops made their advance.
Bendett said it’s not a surprise that Ukraine would be using such approaches. He, along with others, saw other factors beyond drones as being key to Kyiv’s early success in Kursk, such as operational secrecy and the element of surprise. However, he said, the technology is something that Ukraine has been developing, testing and ultimately competing with Russia on.
“We know Ukraine are ahead of Russia, when it comes to developing [these] tactics and techniques,” he said.
Journalist David Axe, who has been covering the conflict, sees Ukraine putting a new spin on an old method in Kursk.
“It’s a creeping barrage of jammers and drones,” Axe wrote in his newsletter Trench Art.
That’s not to say Russia has not been fighting back: A report from The Economist quotes Ukrainian soldiers describing “a demonic buzz” in the skies above Kursk, as both Russian planes and drones soared above them.
Knowing when and where to strike
Oleksiy Goncharenko, a Ukrainian lawmaker, said that some details have been leaking to the media since the Kursk offensive got underway last week.
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While not privy to operational details himself, Goncharenko says it’s clear the military action was carefully planned.
“I understand that you need to attack places where you wouldn’t expect it,” he told CBC News in an emailed statement. “That’s what the Ukrainian Armed Forces did. If we used new tactics and new technologies, that’s definitely a plus.”
Several observers who spoke to CBC News noted that the part of the border where Ukraine launched its offensive was not well defended.
“They weren’t the most high-quality units,” said John Hardie, deputy director of the Russia Program at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a U.S. think-tank.
Add in the fact that the incursion may not have been expected — though a New York Times report suggests Russian military leaders didn’t act on a warning about a potential attack — and you can see how the wheels could be set in motion for a successful result.
“[Ukraine] achieved a significant element of surprise in the early days of the offensive,” said Hardie, who predicted that Russia’s defensive efforts “will become more coherent” in the days ahead.
Bigger questions beyond Kursk
Would Ukraine’s approach have worked as well in an area where Russia had more experienced troops? That’s an open question, said CNA’s Bendett.
And whether it can happen again will depend on Russia’s ability to come up with counter-measures against the tactics used in Kursk, he said.
Nick Reynolds, a research fellow in land warfare at the Royal United Services Institute in the U.K., is skeptical of the significance of drones and electronic warfare to the events in Kursk.
He said via email that it’s unclear how much planning was needed for the Kursk offensive, and also to what degree Ukraine has been able to integrate its drone-and-jamming tactics with planned manoeuvres.
It also remains to be seen if Ukraine can repeat “the same effects when they are not conducting a meticulously pre-planned operation.”
