Editor’s note: The transcript of this interview has been edited for clarity.
As it entered its second week, Ukraine’s cross-border offensive into Russia’s Kursk Oblast is showing no signs of slowing down. Although the element of surprise that overwhelmed the thin Russian defending force in the first days of the incursion has expired, Ukrainian forces continue to advance steadily on the ground, expanding their hold on territory that, as claimed by Kyiv on Aug. 12, amounted to over 1,000 square kilometers of Russian land.
As an embarrassed Russian leadership rushes reinforcements into Kursk Oblast to meet the threat, big questions remain about Kyiv’s next move. Having brought the war to Russia, hit Moscow where it hurts, and triggered a country-wide morale boost, what is there to do next? For the moment, Ukrainian forces seem committed to holding on to territory across the border, but meanwhile, Russia’s advance on Pokrovsk in Donetsk Oblast continues to bear down on the strategic city.
To discuss these questions, the Kyiv Independent sat down with retired Australian Army Major-General Mick Ryan, who has covered the war from the point of view of top-level military leadership and doctrine since the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion. Ryan provides regular analysis on developments on the war on his Substack.
The Kyiv Independent: One thing that is not in doubt about the Kursk Oblast incursion that Ukraine did very well was this operational security, this aspect of surprise. What actually goes into making an operation like this a success, at least the start of it? Were you surprised that they managed that at this point in the war?
Mick Ryan: Not really. I've never really bought into this concept of the transparent battlefield. Wars are human, and it's humans who make all the key decisions. It's humans who surprise other humans. Whilst we might have better visibility compared to previous wars, you can't see into the hearts and minds of human beings. At the end of the day, clever humans will always find ways to fool and to deceive other humans. That's what Ukraine has done here.
They have clearly devised and executed a very clever plan over the last few months, if not further back, to deceive the Russians about a few key things. Firstly, Ukraine's capacity to undertake offensive operations. Secondly, where they might undertake an offensive, the geography. Third, the timing. I don't think anyone really expected Ukraine to conduct large-scale offensives this year, maybe local counter-attacks, so they deceived the Russians about that… and they're probably still deceiving the Russians about what their strategic objectives are for this operation.
The Kyiv Independent: Let’s talk about the objectives. You've written often about the intersection of kinetic military objectives with political objectives and morale. What does it look like balancing all these factors? In this situation for Ukraine, with the situation on the front line in Donbas being really tricky, does it make sense to you?
Mick Ryan: Well, it's certainly a big swing. This is a very risky operation; it's high risk, but potentially high return. The risk clearly is losing more terrain, including some pretty key towns in Donbas and major logistics locations, as well as more Ukrainian ground forces, every single one of which is precious. But the big return might well be that, firstly, Russia slows down or stops its offensive (in eastern Ukraine), and secondly, this really forces the Russians to rethink their overall campaign to move their forces and create other opportunities for Ukrainian ground forces to attack Russian forces, to destroy them, to liberate Ukrainian territory, but also to reinvigorate support for Ukraine in Europe and the United States, and say: one, we're still capable of advancing; two, we're still willing to fight; three, we just need your help, a bit more of it, to finish off the Russians. We need to beat them, not be stuck in this endless “defend Ukraine” kind of strategy.
The Kyiv Independent: How important is this after almost a year of fighting only on the defensive with no one really even talking about counteroffensives? How much does it change the calculus for both sides going forward?
Mick Ryan: Ukraine has changed the status quo of the war. Everyone has been talking about stalemate, even though it hasn't been that, well, it is definitely not that now. It is a war of movement. Henceforth, the Russians will have to invest far more in defending their borders, which they haven't really done. What that will do to their capacity to continue their operations in Ukraine remains to be seen.
There's also a morale piece of this for, firstly, the Ukrainian people. Soldiers, when they're on the offensive like this, their morale is infinitely better. They feel like they're achieving something. There was this great quote from a young Ukrainian soldier in The Economist where he said, “I felt like a tiger again.” That's amazing. That's what you want them to feel. Yes, it's dangerous, and yes, young Ukrainians are being wounded and giving their lives, unfortunately, but it's a different feeling. It's a different sense of morale.
The Kyiv Independent: Along the front line, we've had hundreds of kilometers of very positional trench warfare. But then in the initial days of the Kursk offensive, it was pure, frantic maneuver all over the place. How does that transition look from maneuver to back to positional, meaning digging in?
Mick Ryan: Well, most military operations have a pretty set template in their phases: there's obviously the preparation phase, which is everything from deception to concentrating troops. There's a break-in and breakthrough phase: we’re clearly through that, the Ukrainian forces have broken through two lines of Russian defenses. They are now in what we call an exploitation phase, where they're kind of running riot until the Russians can stop them from doing that. Russian resistance will naturally increase and Ukrainian friction will increase because of logistics, because people are tired, because of the distance that supply lines are stretched and so on. There will be a natural point where the Ukrainian offensive will culminate. It could be days, could be weeks. But when they do, they'll have to consolidate.
After that, there are three real options. Do they stand fast where they are at the end of that exploitation phase? That's a fairly large bit of ground and a fairly long line to defend. Do they withdraw back into more defensible terrain that might actually straighten the line that the Ukrainians have to defend instead of just the frontier? Or do they withdraw entirely, which would also be a sensible thing if you want to preserve all your forces that were involved and then use them for other opportunities to go back into Russia, and other locations. Each of them have very different resourcing troop numbers and political outcomes. It'll be a very interesting calculus for the president and his advisors, as well as the senior military officials to go through.
The Kyiv Independent: What does that decision making look like on the ground? Do you think there is a real possibility that they can hold this for a longer time?
Mick Ryan: Well, any retention of Russian territory will be a major effort for the Ukrainian ground forces. Not just front-line troops, but air defense, electronic warfare, medical evacuation, logistics, communications, all these things will be taxed to the limit to sustain that salient. You have the risk of losing that force that you have in Russia, and my sense is that Ukraine can't afford to be losing entire brigades. It can't when things are good, and it definitely can't when things are tough like in Donbas at the moment. Which way the president and his advisors are going to go is really hard to tell, but like you mentioned before, there are political, there are strategic, there are military considerations in this, and there are just so many different combinations that could be involved in the decision and what this force actually does eventually.
The Kyiv Independent: How do you see the Russian reaction? What does it look like when you have a front line with forces deployed all along their fighting, and then suddenly, a new front, right in your backyard?
Mick Ryan: Well, I'm sure the very first thing they did was offer a few choice expletives, because they would have been surprised very unpleasantly. That's a good thing for Ukraine. But then they'll be looking at contingency plans, and from what I've seen, they probably didn't have too many of them. Russian forces were still going through a command and control change in that area, so there'll be a fair bit of confusion there. Then they'll be looking at what their reserves are, where they are, how quickly they can get there, and who they will work for. Then there'll be a whole lot of subordinate questions like support, munitions, are there vulnerable targets that the Ukrainians might be getting at, both military and civil, including the Kursk nuclear power plant. All these kinds of considerations will be what they would have looked at in that first 24 hours, as they fought through the shock and surprise and came up with plans for responding. Then they would have fleshed out that with subsequent plans as more forces become available, as additional aircraft and sorties become available.
The Kyiv Independent: We all got very used to the idea of this trenches and drones kind of war, but now we see how difficult it can still be to see everything on the battlefield, and how well-planned armored maneuver operations can still be effective. Does this show that this kind of war is not dead yet?
Mick Ryan: Absolutely, it was never dead. It just took a rest every now and then in a couple of places in Ukraine. There are a lot of lessons, and I guess we'll wait and see what the ultimate outcome of this operation is to have a full assessment, but a few occur to me. Firstly, that surprise is still possible. People still discount this in the 21st century, but we get surprised constantly, and it will continue to happen. Secondly, I think this shows the value of well-led, experienced combat formations in these kinds of operations. Last year we saw very green combat formations being used in the counteroffensive, and it didn't go well. There are also lessons around air defense, electronic warfare, deception, and so on.
But I think the most important lesson is again that war is still human. It's not a technological affair, even though we use a lot of technologies. It's about humans and humans planning, about humans deceiving, about humans leading, and about humans ultimately fighting as teams on behalf of their country, behalf of their brigade, behalf of their company, behalf of their platoon. Many of these are not new lessons. We just need to have them reinforced every now and then.
You can watch the video version of this interview here:
Note from the author:
Hi, this is Francis Farrell, reporting from a very strange time in Russia's war against Ukraine. As much as I have enjoyed all the fantastic memes about the Kursk Oblast incursion, it is always worth remembering that these are real people, real Ukrainians out there taking this risk on. In a case like this, when the fog of war is thicker than ever, we are working hard to bring what we know straight to you. Please consider supporting our reporting.
