As Russia retakes Kursk, Ukrainians ask, 'Was it worth it?'

By Manuel Ausloos and Olena Harmash

KYIV (Reuters) - When Mariia Pankova last exchanged messages with her close friend Pavlo in December, she had no idea that he was among the Ukrainian troops fighting in Russia's Kursk region.

She found out when a fellow soldier told her several days later that her friend, Pavlo Humeniuk, 24, a combat engineer in Ukraine's 47th Magura brigade, had gone missing near the village of Novoivanivka in Kursk on December 6.

Almost four months have passed and there has been no further information about Pavlo's fate, Pankova told Reuters, citing her conversations with his relatives. She keeps searching on Telegram and Facebook hoping to find out whether he is dead or alive.

Pankova, 25, believes the cost of Ukraine's risky incursion into Russia may have been too high. The sentiment is shared by many others in Ukraine, especially after troops retreated from most of Kursk this month following weeks of heavy fighting.

"I'm just not sure it was worth it," she said, large teardrops running down her face when talking about her missing friend, who she bonded with over their shared love of hiking in Ukraine's mountains.

"We're not invaders. We just need our territories back, we do not need the Russian one."

In response to questions for this story, Ukraine's armed forces General Staff said the offensive was meant to put pressure on Moscow, to divert Russian forces from other fronts and to prevent Russian cross-border attacks on neighbouring parts of Ukraine.  

The operation "achieved most of its goals", the General Staff said.

Kyiv's assault on Kursk in August took Russia, and the world, by surprise. It was the biggest attack on sovereign Russian territory since the Nazi invasion of 1941.

As Ukrainian soldiers smashed into the Kursk region, largely unopposed, they quickly seized some 1,376 square kilometres (531 square miles) of Russian territory. 

But short of troops, within weeks the area under Ukraine's control shrank to a narrow wedge.

Kyiv used some of its top marine and air assault forces but the grouping was never large enough to be able to hold on to a larger area.

"From the very beginning, logistics was seriously complicated because as we entered the Kursk region, we ensured sufficient depth but we did not ensure sufficient width," said Serhiy Rakhmanin, a Ukrainian lawmaker on the parliament's committee for security and defence.

From the start, Russia had a manpower advantage along the Kursk frontline. 

But the situation became critical late last year. Russia brought in elite units and top drone forces as reinforcements, aided by North Korean forces. They tightened assaults around Ukrainian flanks and advanced to within firing range of a key supply road, according to reports from Ukrainian military bloggers close to the armed forces.

"They not only increased the number of their group opposing our military, but they also improved its quality," Rakhmanin said. Russian President Vladimir Putin has never acknowledged the role of the North Koreans on the battlefield.

'NO LOGIC'

Russia's retaking of the Kursk region removes a potential bargaining chip for Ukraine just as U.S. President Donald Trump undertakes talks to end the war with Russia, which holds around a fifth of Ukraine's national lands.

Ukraine's retreat from the Kursk city of Sudzha, confirmed by Kyiv on March 16, prompted questions and deepened the public divide in Ukraine on the benefits of the incursion.

Soldier Oleksii Deshevyi, 32, a former supermarket security guard who lost his hand while fighting in Kursk in September, said he saw no logic in the operation.

"We should not have started this operation at all," he told Reuters in a rehabilitation centre in Kyiv, where he has spent the past six months adjusting to life after injury. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has acknowledged his military is in a difficult position in Kursk and that he expects continued attacks from Russia as it attempts to push the remaining Ukrainian forces out of the region.  

However, he has denied claims by Putin and Trump that his forces are surrounded. U.S. intelligence assessments also state Kyiv's troops are not encircled.

The Russian forces are now sending small assault groups to try to break through the Ukrainian border in the Sumy region, and may also be readying for a bigger attack there, Ukrainian military analysts said.

In public comments made to Putin, Russia's chief of General Staff, Valery Gerasimov last week confirmed his troops' recent incursions into Sumy. He detailed what he said were heavy Ukrainian losses in Kursk.

Even as Ukraine shifted to a defensive operation, its goals included “control over the territory of the Russian Federation, exhaustion of the enemy, destruction of its personnel and pulling back its reserves,” Ukraine's General Staff said.

It added that nearly 1,000 Russian soldiers were taken prisoner, some of whom were swapped for Ukrainian prisoners.

Because of the operation, Moscow had to create three new groupings, totalling about 90,000 soldiers, as well as 12,000 North Korean servicemen, the General Staff said.

Reuters could not independently verify those claims. 

RISKY GAMBLE

Even at the start, some criticised it as a risky gamble.

Viktor Muzhenko, former head of Ukraine's General Staff, wrote in August 2024 that Ukraine should "focus on defending its key territories, avoiding unpredictable risky operations that could divert attention from main threats, and choose forms and methods of using troops that are adequate to their capabilities."

However, some in Ukraine hailed the operation as a black eye for Russia.

Speaking on March 12, Oleksander Syrskyi, Ukraine's commander-in-chief, said the operation diverted and killed some of Russia's best troops.

Lawmaker Rakhmanin said it also provided a much-needed boost to morale in Ukraine after Russia made territorial advances there in 2024 and showcased Ukraine's ability to conduct successful offensive operations.

While Trump negotiates with Putin for an end to the war, Pankova remembered her friend Pavlo and cast doubt over the possibility of a peace deal that prevented Russia from later taking more Ukrainian territory.

She was thinking of joining the armed forces, she said. 

"Every time that someone tries to, let's say, sell some piece of Ukraine, they just have not to forget what we already gave. How many lives our people gave for that.

(Reporting by Manuel Ausloos and Olena Harmash in Kyiv; Additional reporting by Ivan Lyubysh-Kirdey; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel)