Rubber band red lines: Ukraine's incursion into Kursk exposes Russian vulnerabilities

Ukrainian soldiers on the outskirts of Sudzha in the Kursk Region, August 2024 / Status-6

What was Vladimir Putin doing during this invasion? He visited Baku, Azerbaijan, inspected pear orchards in Kabardino-Balkaria, stopped by Beslan two weeks before the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attack there, observed Ramzan Kadyrov's son Adam shooting in Chechnya, held a “Conversation on Important Matters” lesson in a Tuva school, and visited Mongolia. To this day, the president has not found time to visit Kursk.

Meanwhile, research by the OpenMinds project shows that after August 6, 2024, the main topic of discussion on the Russian internet was the invasion of the Kursk Region. The FilterLabs AI project, which analyzes social media comments, recorded a sharp rise in negative assessments of Putin's performance. Even generally loyalist polling agencies like FOM, the Levada Center, and VTsIOM reported increased anxiety among Russians and a drop in trust for the Russian president.

Despite this, Putin consistently referred to the events around Kursk not as a crisis, but as a “provocation” (August 7), “circumstances” (August 8), a “counter-terrorist situation” (August 12), and simply a “situation” (August 22). During a public lesson on September 2 in a school in Kyzyl, Putin told students about “bandits who entered the Kursk Region.” Notably, the Kremlin did not use the invasion of Russian territory for patriotic mobilization, instead downplaying its significance in the information space.