As Russian troops are set to push Ukrainian soldiers out of Kursk Oblast, experts say Kyiv's withdrawal from the region could be "politically significant."
Ukraine's seven-month-long hold of a small portion of Russia's Kursk Oblast might be ending. On March 12, Russian troops entered the town of Sudzha, which served as Ukraine's main stronghold in the region.
Fearing encirclement, Ukrainian troops have begun to pull back closer to the border.
The news comes a day after Ukraine had agreed to the U.S. proposal for a 30-day-long ceasefire. The Kremlin said "it was studying the proposal."
"It feels like we're getting to a position where people are trying to settle the front lines in anticipation that we might have a set of negotiations," said Scott Lucas, a political scientist and professor of American Studies and International Politics at University College Dublin's Clinton Institute.
Andreas Umland
Western and Ukrainian experts who spoke to the Kyiv Independent said that Ukraine has already achieved certain political objectives by invading Russia in the first place and holding onto parts of Kursk Oblast for months. Kyiv will now have to decide whether it should reinforce the Kursk salient by sending more troops and resources that could be deployed elsewhere, or organize a retreat to avoid what could be a disastrous scenario on the ground.
"Ukraine wants to be able to show that it continues to stand and to resist, even as the Trump administration walks away," Lucas said, referring to the U.S.' cutting off its military aid and intelligence sharing earlier in March.
The U.S. on March 11 agreed to lift the ban on intelligence sharing following talks with the Ukrainian side in Saudi Arabia. However, the future U.S. support — and Europe's readiness to take the lead in providing Ukraine with military aid — remains uncertain.
And losing a foothold in Russia may have an impact on the mood both inside and outside Ukraine.
Kyiv has repeatedly pointed out the success in Kursk Oblast even as Russian troops advanced significantly along the front lines in Donetsk Oblast, capturing long-time Ukrainian strongholds of Vuhledar, and Kurakhove.
Both Kyiv and Western countries have labeled the partial occupation of Kursk Oblast as a crucial bargaining chip for possible peace negotiations when the time comes.
"(Ukraine's) position in Kursk is an important one because certainly it's something that would factor in any negotiation that may come about in the coming year," then U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters in January.
Russia's inability to protect its own territory last August and its decision to pursue further invasion of Ukraine at the cost of keeping safe its own territory resulted in "negative sentiments" domestically, according to Oleksiy Melnyk, the co-director of foreign policy and international security at the Kyiv-based think tank Razumkov Center.
"It's not about the city of Sudzha or square kilometers, but about Russian territorial integrity," Melnyk said. But it may have been a poor decision for Kyiv to publicly discuss its openness for trading the Kursk salient for Ukrainian territory, he added.
Earlier in February, President Volodymyr Zelensky told the Guardian that he planned to play the Kursk card in potential negotiations to "swap one territory for another" without clarifying which part of Russian-occupied territory Kyiv would ask for in return.
Disclosing Ukraine's negotiation position has likely served "as a digger" for Moscow to concentrate its effort to deprive Ukraine of such a leverage, he stressed.
Moscow is currently accelerating its push in Kursk Oblast, with the Russian Defense Ministry claiming on March 11 that it recaptured 12 settlements and 100 square kilometers (40 square miles) of territory there. Ukrainian troops on the ground have told the Kyiv Independent in recent days that the situation is ever more critical, as the logistics were hampered.
"Losing Kursk, people begin to question whether or not you just have to simply give up."
Russian forces have gained ground south of Sudzha, potentially cutting off some Ukrainian positions from the rest of the salient. Ukraine's Commander-in-Chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi, denied threats of encirclement.
Losing the Kursk salient would likely not result in a further decline of U.S. support as "we can't get into negative numbers in that sense," according to Steven Horrell, a non-resident senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis.
Hanging onto the Kursk Oblast territory is an important bargaining chip "in the international eyes," with the operation allowing Ukraine to show Western countries that it can still strike back despite battlefield setbacks, Horrell said.
"I think the surge of (Western) support after the Kursk offensive was concrete proof of that," he added.
Now, with the operation seemingly dying out slowly, Ukraine's potential retreat from Kursk Oblast can reinforce U.S. President Donald Trump and his team's point that "there is no way Ukraine can win," Horrell said.
"Losing Kursk, people begin to question whether or not you just have to simply give up," Lucas said.
Andrea Januta
