LONDON/KYIV, Aug 17 (Reuters) - Just hours before Ukrainian soldiers launched an assault across Russia’s western border, Moscow showed no signs of alarm. At midnight on Aug. 6, the Russian defense ministry announced that over 2,500 soldiers, credited with capturing a town in eastern Ukraine, would receive state awards for heroism.
Later that morning, as Ukraine initiated the largest invasion of Russia since World War Two, the ministry released footage of General Valery Gerasimov, commander of the Russian war effort, visiting another combat zone in Ukraine. The video showed him receiving reports from commanders and setting “tasks for further actions,” without indicating any awareness of the unfolding events in Russia’s western Kursk region, which threatened to disrupt his plans and alter the course of the two-and-a-half-year war.
Panic quickly spread among local Russian residents in the early hours of the assault, despite repeated assurances from authorities that the situation was under control. This timeline, based on public statements, social media posts, and video analysis by Reuters, highlights the first two days of the incursion.
The notion that Ukraine could turn the tables on Russia and invade its much larger neighbor seemed unimaginable to most observers before last week. The surprise operation has raised questions about the effectiveness of Russia’s surveillance and the strength of its border defenses.
“The Russians experienced a complete intelligence failure here,” said Yohann Michel, a French military expert and research fellow at the IESD institute in Lyon. With Ukrainian forces retreating in eastern Ukraine, one of the most strategic sectors of the front line, Moscow may have assumed Kyiv would not take such a high-stakes gamble, Michel added.
Ukraine’s objectives in Kursk include diverting Russian forces from the front line in the eastern Donetsk region. However, fighting has intensified in Donetsk in recent days, increasing the risks for Ukraine as it tries to hold ground in Kursk.
Russian member of parliament and former military officer Andrei Gurulyov stated in a television interview two days after the incursion that Russian military leaders had been warned about a month earlier of signs of a potential Ukrainian attack, but the warning was ignored.
The Russian defense ministry did not respond to requests for comment. Ukraine’s armed forces declined to comment on the ongoing operations, and the U.S. State Department, Pentagon, and White House did not immediately respond to inquiries.
It wasn’t until the afternoon of Aug. 7 that President Vladimir Putin and Gerasimov made their first public statements on the Kursk events, with Putin calling it “another major provocation” by Ukraine. Gerasimov, fresh from his ill-timed trip, told Putin in televised comments that Russian forces had “stopped” a force of up to 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers from advancing deep into the Kursk region.