Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said on Thursday that tanks and armored vehicles donated by Canada are free to be used in Russia.
The statement comes amid growing speculation among military experts about how long Ukraine can maintain its offensive in Russia’s Kursk region and what long-term implications the surprise border incursion might have in the protracted war.
Canada donated eight Leopard 2A4 tanks, dozens of armored combat support vehicles, hundreds of armored patrol vehicles, and several M-777 howitzers.
CNN news footage taken along the Ukraine border on Thursday showed a Canadian-made Senator patrol vehicle crossing into Russia.
“Ukrainian people know best how to defend their homeland and we are committed to supporting their capabilities,” Defense Ministry spokesman Andrée-Ann Poulin said in a media statement.
“Canada does not impose geographic restrictions on the use of military equipment donated to Ukraine.”
It is unclear how much of the Canadian-donated equipment ended up in the hands of the specially outfitted Ukrainian brigades when Ukrainian forces crossed the border on August 6.
Poulin said Canada’s donations have always complied with the requirements of the Arms Trade Treaty, an international agreement aimed at reducing illegal arms transfers and human rights violations.
Ukrainian military commander-in-chief Gen. Oleksandr Shirsky said his forces now control dozens of villages and 1,150 square kilometres of land in the Kursk region, and that Kiev had set up a military headquarters in the area.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed on Thursday that Ukrainian forces had taken control of the Russian town of Suzha, which is located near a Russian natural gas terminal and is a key distribution point for energy supplies to Europe.
“A bold, wonderful, courageous act.”
The audacity of the cross-border attack, coming as Ukraine struggles to halt a Russian advance in the eastern Donbas region nearly 30 months into the war, has surprised and impressed many former Western military officials.
“This was a bold and incredible act of courage by men who are literally on the front lines of modern warfare tactics and strategy,” said former Canadian Lt. Gen. Andrew Leslie, who served as ground and NATO commander in Afghanistan.
Retired US Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, a former commander of US Army Europe, said both the West and Russia underestimated Ukraine from the start, and that the fact that Ukraine was able to assemble a strike force and carry out the raid on Moscow’s doorstep speaks volumes, he said.
“They are clearly [military capacity] “They had more than we thought they had or were assessed to have had,” Hodges said.
“So I would never underestimate what Ukraine could or might do.”
Philip Carver, who teaches at the National Defense University in Washington and has visited Ukraine 39 times since the country annexed Crimea in 2014, said the Ukrainian shock brigades that invaded Russia had been reinforced with additional troops and equipment.
He said that despite the success, Ukrainian forces had not advanced as far into the Kursk region as they had hoped.
“The Russians, [the Ukrainians] “That was expected,” Karber said, adding that he believed Ukrainian forces were stopped about halfway to their apparent objective, a more easily defensible area covered in heavy forests on the Russian side.
A crisis can manifest itself in several ways.
President Silsky could create chaos, drawing some Russian forces away from the fighting in eastern Ukraine and then ordering an orderly withdrawal to Ukrainian defensive positions.
Ukrainian forces may attempt to hold and defend the territories they have captured in order to create a strategic buffer zone, and they may also seek to penetrate lightly defended Russian territory elsewhere to establish new salients.
Nine days after launching its surprise cross-border offensive, Ukraine continues to maintain and expand its control over Russian territory, with no sign of an end to Moscow’s claims that it is about to do so.
On Thursday, there were reports that Ukrainian forces had attempted to enter the Belgorod region, which borders Kursk.
Ukrainian forces are reportedly building fortifications in the occupied Kursk region as they appear to be preparing for an expected Russian counterattack.
Karber said the region typically experiences rainy weather in September, but the Russians believe they need to act before that happens.
He said he didn’t know what the Ukrainians would do.
It’s hard to win, but even harder to maintain
Leslie said it would be extremely difficult for Ukraine to establish a strategic buffer zone given the current shortage of human resources.
“If they were to maintain it, it would make the costs of the military prohibitively expensive,” he said.
“Do not underestimate the willingness of the Russian military to commit tens, even hundreds of thousands, of soldiers, even if they are poorly armed and will certainly die. They don’t care.”
The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said in a recent assessment of the Kursk Offensive that the long-term impact on the war could be enormous.
Russia has been focusing on controlling areas in the east and south of its neighbor, leaving much of its border with Ukraine undefended.
The incursion could force the Kremlin to view the entire 1,000-kilometer border area as a front line.
“Following the withdrawal of Russian forces from Kyiv, Chernihiv, and Sumy oblasts in spring 2022, and the liberation of significant territories of Kharkiv oblast by Ukrainian forces in fall 2022, the Russian military command essentially treats the international border with northeastern Ukraine as a dormant front on the battlefield,” the institute said in its Aug. 11, 2024 assessment.
“Moscow’s response may force the Russian military command to consider personnel and material requirements for international border defense,” the assessment continues. This will put further strain on Russian military manpower.
