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Two months into Ukraine’s Kursk offensive, anger in Russia’s border regions fuels war support

 

Ever since Ukraine launched a lightning incursion deep into Russia territory in early August, Yan, a local resident in the city of Kursk, has been volunteering at a local drop-off point, helping to distribute clothes and bedding.

“The number of people arriving at the humanitarian aid points every week is increasing,” Yan, his full name withheld so as to speak freely, told the Kyiv Independent. “Now, with the cold weather setting in, the need for warm clothes and insulated bedding has become very urgent, while food parcels and hygiene products remain important,” he added.

For two months now, Ukrainian troops have been in control of dozens of settlements in Russia’s border region, with refugees continuing to pour into the Kursk Oblast’s provincial capital as fierce fighting in the west of the region continues.

The Kursk offensive, which comes as Ukraine increasingly strikes Moscow’s military assets deep inside Russia, has demonstrated Kyiv’s ability to bring about a new phase of the war in the third year of Russia’s brutal all-out invasion. But some analysts warn these audacious tactics, rather than presenting a thorn in the Kremlin’s side, only fuel war support in the regions affected.

“The logic that by trying to target Russian society and make life in the country unbearable will turn Russians against the Kremlin is flawed. In fact, the more the situation appears threatening, the more they will stand with the state,” Tatyana Stanovaya, an analyst at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, told the Kyiv Independent.

On Oct. 2, Russian forces captured the city of Vuhledar in Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast. The loss of the strategic city, which has borne the brunt of heavy fighting for over two years, symbolizes the slow and grinding advances of Russian forces in Ukraine’s east.

The incursion into Kursk was Kyiv’s attempt to redress that momentum, drawing Russian forces away from the country’s east and boosting morale across Ukraine. It was also meant to show Ukraine’s Western backers that Russian “red lines” are not backed by action, potentially helping Kyiv to receive permission to strike Russian territory with Western-made missiles.

“What it has done is show our partners what we’re capable of. We have also shown the Global South that (Russian President Vladimir) Putin, who claims to have everything under control, in fact, does not,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said of the Kursk incursion in an interview with The New Yorker.

In recent weeks, Ukraine has also stepped up its strikes deep inside Russian territory, taking out three munitions depots. Satellite imagery showed the burnt-out Oktyabrsky and Toropets storage facilities in the Tver Oblast, as well as the Tikhoretsk depot in the Krasnodar Krai, all but destroyed following a series of drone strikes.

And while disrupting Moscow’s ability to carry out its war of aggression, Stanovaya argues this tactic has one major side effect – the Russian population gets accustomed to war and wants it to continue until some sort of victory is achieved. What victory means for them, is rarely crystallized.

“One of the most significant outcomes of the Kursk attack may be a reinforcement of anti-Ukrainian and anti-Western sentiment, which in turn could boost support for Putin and prolong the war,” she wrote in a report on R.Politik, a website providing analysis into Russian affairs.

In July, hopes for a speedy end to the conflict among Russians polled at a record high of 58% of the population. In the wake of the Kursk offensive, that figure dwindled to 49%, according to Russian pollster the Levada Center, seen as autonomous from government interference.

This uptick in war support comes as Ukraine reportedly looks for an off ramp from the war that has ravaged the country for almost a thousand days. In a landmark trip to the U.S in late September, Zelensky unveiled a “victory” plan to U.S. President Joe Biden.

“After 10 years of war, including two and a half years of full-scale war, people are getting tired,” Oleksandr Merezhko, the chair of Ukraine’s foreign affairs committee, told the Kyiv Independent.

“Despite this, we have no other option but to continue to fight and persevere. It’s a war of attrition, and to survive and win, we need to outlast the enemy. It’s the only way,” Merezhko added.

A desire to want to end the war, but also recognizing the need to keep fighting it, was also highlighted in further polling across Russia in October. Research carried out by ЕxtremeScan and the Chronicles project, which conducted telephone interviews across the country between July and September, showed that roughly half of the respondents supported a truce in the next year if Putin decides to end the war even with the country’s military goals unfulfilled.

Yet, many have questioned the efficacy of polling in wartime Russia, where strict laws prohibit any criticism of what the Kremlin calls its “special military operation.”

“(Polling) as a thermometer of the will of the Russian people has zero validity,” Greg Yudin, professor of political philosophy at the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences, told the Kyiv Independent.

“Under authoritarian conditions, it is explicitly prescribed not to have any preferences,” Yudin added in a paper that rebutted figures about President Putin’s popularity ratings in Russian media outlet Important Stories.

But residents of the border regions who spoke to the Kyiv Independent on conditions of anonymity demonstrated a sharpened anger at Ukraine and a desire among some to want to settle the war militarily.

In Kursk, where tens of thousands of refugees have arrived since the beginning of August, many believe that a drawn-out war may be the only way to eventually return to normality.

“People orient themselves around the views of the (government-controlled) media. The mood is very much, let’s end this one so we can return home,” said a lawyer from Kursk Oblast who has recently moved to Leningrad Oblast due to cross-border shelling.

“(People) blame the Ukrainian army and its government, believing that because of their actions, they find themselves internally displaced,” Yan said. “They want to return home. They recognize this is only possible if the territories where they lived are liberated by military means,” he added.

“The invasion of the Kursk Oblast and the raids in Belgorod Oblast politically make these regions the most ‘militaristic,’ ultra-patriotic and anti-Ukrainian,” said independent sociologist Alexey Gusev.

Two years ago, shortly after the Kremlin announced its mobilization drive, the lawyer from Kursk who spoke to the Kyiv Independent left Russia due to fears he may be called up to fight. He saw little reason why he should be forced to fight in a war beyond Russia’s borders, especially one that he did not support.

Since returning to Russia, the lawyer now admits that the Kursk incursion has made avoiding the war more difficult.

“I believed that my country didn’t need defending, even as someone who completed military service and promised to defend my country. But now, even though it is a small part of my country, it is a part of my country that has been attacked,” he said.

“Now, it is difficult to say what people think about peace negotiations. In my opinion, people just want Russian territory to be returned to Russia. That is the minimum,” he added.

And despite discussions in Washington D.C. and a pivotal U.S. presidential election on the horizon, Merezhko said the time for negotiation talks could still be some way off.

“I don’t believe that right now Putin is ready for any negotiations. He is not interested in peace, because peace creates danger for his stay in power,” he said.

“There can be a peace through strength approach applied to Putin when the pressure on him on the battlefield and from sanctions is high enough to make him stop the aggression,” Merezhko added.

But for now, Kyiv’s attempts to notch up that pressure, only takes us further away from any prospects for peace, Stanovaya said.

“The more dangerous the situation becomes, the more robust the support for the authorities in Russia will be. So it decreases Russia’s willingness to talk to Ukraine,” she said.

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