Russia reluctant to admit ‘the enemy is at the gate’, treats incursion as natural disaster
- Ukraine’s surprise incursion into Kursk marks Russia’s first foreign military clash in decades, rattling Kremlin defences and public sentiment
The Kremlin’s attempt to convey a sense of normality over the Ukrainian incursion is being replicated in state media. They have focused reporting mostly on efforts to bring humanitarian aid to the nearly 200,000 people who’ve fled their homes, as if they are victims of flooding or some other natural disaster rather than the first foreign military intervention since World War II.
“The Kremlin doesn’t want to send a message that the enemy is at the gate,” said Olga Oliker, Director for Europe & Central Asia at the International Crisis Group in Brussels. “They don’t want to send a message of Ukraine’s strength and their own weakness.”
Ukraine says it is continuing to expand operations in Kursk and controls dozens of villages and towns with the incursion in its second week. Russia’s Defense Ministry has rushed reinforcements to try to restore control, so far without success. Authorities have also declared a state of emergency in the neighbouring Belgorod region, where officials report mounting cross-border attacks from Ukraine.
It is a stunning reversal for Russia more than 900 days after Putin ordered the February 2022 invasion that was meant to deliver a swift victory. Ukraine’s military strike caught its allies in the US and Europe by surprise, too, where some had long worried that allowing Kyiv to carry the war into Russia would be a red line provoking a harsh response from Putin – maybe even a nuclear one.