Russia is pulling some troops out of Ukraine to fight Ukrainians in Russia

How far will Ukrainian forces continue into Russia, and what are they trying to accomplish? The White House said this week that U.S. officials don’t yet know what Ukraine’s “intentions” are, but White House spokesman John Kirby told reporters that “early reports” suggest “some Russian units [are] being reapplied to the Kursk area.” 

While it’s too soon to say exactly how many are leaving the Ukraine front line, even a small withdrawal “means you’re taking assets that were in one place doing one thing, and now they have to go do another,” Kirby said, and “that certainly presents a dilemma in the decision-making process,” for Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

Is that dilemma enough to turn the war more in Ukraine’s favor? 

Retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling said this week on X that Ukrainian forces that entered Russian territory during the incursion helped Ukrainians target four Russian airfields that have played an important role in Russia’s air campaign over Ukraine, and  have captured hundreds of Russian soldiers. “Pretty good operation,” he concluded. 

George Barros, the Russia team & geospatial intelligence team lead at the Institute of the Study of War, told Defense One the Russian troop movements out of Ukraine so far have been small and spread across multiple units, “certainly below brigade,” leaving no large or obvious weakness in Russia’s front line in Ukraine.

But that doesn’t mean the redeployments are insignificant. 

“We saw some reports of elements of the 1st Guards Tank Army, which was operating as part of the northern grouping of forces, Russia's cross border invasion force … Some of those are redeploying slightly to the west to go to Kursk. We saw some reports of Chechen units that were previously operating in the Donbas … redeployed there as well. We’ve got irregular Russian proxy forces from the Donbas volunteer corps, again, I think really small units, probably below the company level, but there's a smattering redeployment from Donetsk to go towards Kursk,” Barros said. 

Putin has tasked the FSB, an intelligence and security service founded from the remnants of the Soviet KGB, with running a joint force headquarters to coordinate between the units. But Barros argues the FSB is poorly suited for the task. 

While Ukraine isn’t likely to hold Russian territory forever, the offensive reveals key vulnerabilities in Russian defenses that will force Putin to rethink his plans for Ukraine, Barros said. The offensive is “showing the extent to which the Russians have not had to protect that 1,000 kilometers worth of international border area.” 

If Ukraine can force Russia to see that northern border as insecure—not just in Kursk, but in Belgorod and Bryansk—requiring additional forces to prevent future incursions, they may succeed in pulling enough Russian troops out of Ukraine to halt further Russian advancement. Barros estimated it might cost Russia several divisions, “or perhaps a couple armies,” to effectively guard the border. That will, in turn, “substantially increase the requirements that the Russians will have for maintaining and protracting this war, especially in the long term.”

Dmitri Alperovitch, founder of the Silverado Policy Accelerator and author of the book “World on the Brink,” said the offensive has “achieved a tactical operational surprise in an era of ubiquitous battlefield surveillance when many thought this might be impossible.”

The capture of hundreds of Russian soldiers and the accompanying morale boost for Ukraine are welcome developments, Alperovitch said. But the cost may be too great in terms of Ukrainian forces spent for territory that Ukraine will face great difficulty holding, he said. 

“To pull off this operation, they had to take some of their most experienced forces from the line in the Donbas, where the Russians already had an upper-hand, something that increases the likelihood of a more territorial gain by Russia there. There are also real questions about their ability to hold captured Kursk territory over the long term as leverage in future negotiations with Russia, given the lack of fortifications and trenches there.” 

The offensive could also provide an unexpected boost to Putin by giving him a new justification to increase the size of his forces, Alperovich said. 

“Given that the fight is now on Russian territory, it might give Putin an excuse he needed to call for a new mobilization—this time not just to fight in a war of foreign aggression that few Russians have much enthusiasm for, but to defend Mother Russia itself.”

The good news, Barros said, is that so far that’s not what Putin has been saying. In fact, rather than play up the invasion as an excuse to pull more young men off the streets to send to the front, he’s been downplaying the Ukrainian incursion as the act of a few lone “terrorists.” 

“He did not declare martial law. He did not even dignify the regular Ukrainian units operating in Russia as combatants,” Barros said. “He also signaled to the Russian population that he's not going to conduct another round of partial mobilization, because he said that the volunteer response from Russian society has been very overwhelming.”

That could all change depending on how much more land Ukraine takes or how jeopardized Putin starts to feel.