Why Putin hasn’t driven Ukraine's invaders out of Russia's Kursk region

Russian President Vladimir Putin has not prioritized battling Ukraine's Kursk incursion, instead focusing his military on the fight for Pokrovsk.

SUMY, Ukraine — It’s been more than three weeks since foreign troops swept into Russia for the first time since World War II, yet there is little sign that Ukrainian forces are about to be driven back across the border. 

The Ukrainian advance may have stalled since the daring Aug. 6 assault, but Kyiv claims it controls nearly 500 square miles of Russian territory and has taken hundreds of prisoners of war. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin has vowed to “squeeze” the Ukrainians out, but his military’s recent successes have been much farther afield in Ukraine’s east. Now both armies seem focused on the fight in enemy territory where they are gaining ground, even if that means leaving the door open in their own backyard.  

Russian soldiers fire toward Ukrainian positions in the Kursk region this month.Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP“This seems to be a game of who blinks first,” a Western intelligence official, who asked to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of the situation, told NBC News. “Ukrainians are taking and holding Russian land. Russians are pushing in the east. It could be a question of who withdraws their forces first.”A key goal of Ukraine’s surprise attack on the southern Kursk border region seemed to be easing the pressure on its industrial heartland, where Russian troops have been advancing against outgunned and outmanned defenders. 

Faced with the ignominy of losing his own territory to the neighbor he had invaded, the assumption seemed, Putin would scramble the Kremlin’s might to drive out the Ukrainians even if it meant sacrificing progress elsewhere. That has not been the case.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/why-ukraine-still-in-russia-putin-kursk-incursion-rcna168735

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