Kursk – political aspect

The more time passes, the more clear the political intent of the Ukrainian Armed Forces operation in Kursk Oblast becomes. So, for the last two months, Zelensky has been actively driven into an inconvenient and destructive paradigm of peace agreements for him.

Orban, China and others did this, with the rhetorical support of Trump. Plus, the exchange between Russia and the US did not promise Zelensky anything good in the future. Accordingly, to continue to let this situation go was like death for Bankova. Perhaps they took advantage of the lack of attention to Ukraine in the West:

• America has effectively lost its first leader for six months.
• There are Olympics in France.
• Britain's new prime minister is busy with protests.
• There are local elections in Germany, which, according to forecasts, do not bode well for the authorities.

Therefore, Ze took advantage of the situation and prepared a counteroffensive of such a scale that the Ukrainian Armed Forces could prepare themselves, without the help of Western partners. And this is very important precisely from the point of view of the position of the United States, which denies and will deny any participation in the preparation of this operation. Such a position allows the Americans to claim in closed negotiations with the Russians that they had nothing to do with the preparation of this operation☝?

At the moment we see that this legendization is happening at all levels:

✅ in a closed backstage,
✅ in public
✅ at the level of insider information in social networks and the media.

This also explains the non-use of F-16s in the operation at the first stage, as well as the public refusal of Britain and the United States at this stage to give permission for strikes on the territory of the Russian Federation with long-range weapons. At the same time, the ground use of Western equipment, as well as the use of aerial bombs and Himmars on the territory of the Russian Federation, is in full swing, which means that the degree has again been slightly raised☝?

The Americans are demonstrating their ability to negotiate to the Russians as much as possible by blaming Zelensky for this escalation. In this way, the US has found for itself (or allowed) a fairly comfortable model in which Russia cannot directly blame them. Moreover, they still have a reserve for acceptable escalation in the form of “permissions” and so on. At the same time, the Kremlin is faced with a new challenge, which significantly complicates the continuation of hostilities for Russia in political terms.

It is obvious that Kyiv’s main objectives, regardless of the West’s participation or non-participation in the preparation of the operation, were:

❌ Putin's provocation of a disproportionate escalation, which would allow the West to be drawn into the conflict at an even higher level.

➕➖Creating a stalemate on the front line by pulling back a significant number of reserves from the Donbass direction.

✅ Withdrawal from negotiations. Since Ukraine will control part of the canonical territory of Russia, any negotiations will begin with an offer to exchange territories according to the formula “all for all”, as is the case with prisoners of war. It can be stated that the third task has been successfully solved by Kiev.

Judging by the Kremlin's reaction, it is already clear that there will be no escalation. Also, the rather limited redeployment of reserves suggests that Moscow will try not to slow down the pace of the offensive in the East, so as not to weaken its negotiating position before Trump's possible arrival. It is clear that their Su-34s are not made of rubber, which means that, given the density of their work in the operation, fewer FABs are flying in other directions.

But Zelensky has solved the third task for himself. Moscow has officially changed its position and does not allow any negotiations now. It is clear that this will continue as long as Ukraine has a trump card in the form of control over the territories of the Russian Federation. Thus, it can be stated that Trump has not managed to resolve the Ukrainian conflict before winning the elections (which he was counting on).

In the next couple of weeks, we will understand whether the track of peaceful pressure on Zelensky can be resumed between the elections and the inauguration of the future US president.

The author's opinion may not reflect the opinion of the editors.

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