The Wall Street Journal reports .
According to Ukrainian officials, the decision to withdraw troops was made to save lives and to optimally allocate resources on other fronts. However, the decision has sparked controversy both among international analysts and within the country itself.
Ukraine had hoped to hold onto territory in Kursk as a bargaining chip in peace talks, but Ukrainian officials said the troops needed to be withdrawn to save lives.
Critics of the Kursk operation said that the withdrawal of troops showed that it was a wasteful imprudence, which resulted in the squandering of some of the best Ukrainian troops and their valuable Western armored vehicles, which were desperately needed on other fronts in Ukraine.
However, some analysts said that Ukraine, which is inferior in numbers and armament to its giant neighbor, was forced to use unconventional solutions.
“What is one bad option among many bad options? Ukraine faces dilemma after dilemma?” said Nick Reynolds of the Royal United Forces Institute in London.
According to Ukrainian officials, the operation achieved some of its initial goals: proving to Ukrainians and Western backers that the military could still conduct offensive operations, preventing an expected Russian incursion in the same area, and capturing soldiers to exchange for Ukrainian prisoners held in inhumane conditions in Russian prisons.
At the same time, Ukraine managed to stabilize key sections of the front line in eastern Ukraine, pushing back Russia in the Pokrovsk area and counterattacking near Toretsk, which was on the verge of capture.
Russian tactics in the Kursk region
According to the WSJ, in conditions where the Ukrainians constantly fired on their armored vehicles, the Russians relied on artillery, air strikes, and infantry to advance through the difficult terrain of the Kursk region, filled with swamps and soft soil, unable to withstand heavy equipment during the rainy season.
In addition, North Korean soldiers were transferred to the Kursk region, who broke forward under heavy fire, not knowing modern battlefield maneuvers, but demonstrating physical strength and courage:
“In one battle, Ukrainian special operations forces fought off waves of North Korean soldiers for eight hours, eventually running out of ammunition and retreating, capturing a prisoner who later died of his wounds.”.
One of the Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers notes that the North Koreans were everywhere, “it was impossible to count them.”.
Crucial to the Russian advance was a new type of drone, controlled via fiber optic cable, which is immune to Ukrainian electronic jamming.
“Until early March, Ukrainian troops could not move equipment to or from Kursk without coming under a hail of Russian fire, which made it virtually impossible to systematically evacuate the wounded or reinforcements,” the WSJ writes.
Last weekend, soldiers stationed in the area reported that the remaining supply routes for the troops were under fire and virtually impassable for vehicles, with artillery and drones working to contain the advance and allow them to withdraw.
Earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that there is no encirclement of Ukrainian troops in Russia's Kursk region, and the operation of the Armed Forces of Ukraine "in certain areas" of the region is ongoing.
ISW analysts wrote that Russia is accusing Ukrainian military personnel of alleged war crimes in the Kursk region in order to disrupt negotiations on a 30-day ceasefire.
