Kursk incursion boosts Ukrainian morale after grim year

(Reuters)

KYIV, Aug 21 – For Kyiv-area resident Olha Pavlovska, who huddles with her neighbours every week to discuss the often grim news from the front, Ukraine’s shock incursion into Russia’s Kursk region this month offered a rare moment of hope.

“This was a very brave and important step … for keeping up morale in society,” said Pavlovska, 51, speaking outside St Michael’s Cathedral in the centre of Kyiv.

Ukrainian leaders have cast the Aug. 6 attack, the biggest invasion of Russia since World War Two, as proof that Ukraine’s military can still succeed in offensive operations – and still surprise.

Kyiv’s troops have captured swathes of Russian territory and soldiers to exchange for Ukrainian prisoners of war, a much-needed morale boost for a military that has not made significant gains on its own soil since late 2022.

A counteroffensive last year largely failed to recapture Russian-occupied territory, and Moscow’s troops have steadily advanced in the east amid grinding fighting that has sapped Ukrainian resources.

The setbacks have fuelled creeping pessimism about the war’s outcome, with 32% of Ukrainians willing to accept territorial concessions to end the war, according to a survey published last month by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, up from 10% around a year ago.

In recent days the mood has lightened, with online memes poking fun at Russia over the setback flooding Ukrainian social networks. Several Ukrainian troops Reuters spoke to near the Russian border last week were in high spirits as they returned from their combat mission inside Russia.