Syrskyi explains why he sent troops to Kursk operation instead of defending Pokrovsk

Oleksandr Syrskyi, former commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, considers the Kursk operation a successful manoeuvre and says that Russia had concentrated a force of nearly 100,000 troops near Pokrovsk at the time, meaning that redeploying Ukrainian units there would not have changed the situation.

Source: Syrskyi in an interview with the BBC's Ukrainian service

Quote from Syrskyi: "You have to understand that this operation was a necessity. If we recall 2024, after substantially increasing the pay of its military personnel and expanding the size of its forces, the enemy launched offensive operations in early summer 2024. This was effectively happening across all 13 operational sectors, with the enemy enjoying a 4.5-fold advantage in some areas and, at times, even a sixfold advantage.

Under those conditions, with Russian aircraft dominating the skies, we were engaged in heavy defensive fighting, and we simply had to disrupt the enemy's plans, given the significant advantage it had."

Details: Syrskyi said the military leadership had studied the entire front line in detail and selected the Sumy front, where the Russians initially had 26,000 troops. During Russia's unsuccessful offensive on the Kharkiv front, however, it gradually redeployed all of its forces and assets from the Sumy front to Kharkiv. This failed to give the Russians any significant advantage, and they became bogged down in fighting along the border.

Syrskyi's decision to conduct an offensive operation on the Kursk front was approved by the Ukrainian president.

As a result, within a month, Ukraine's defence forces took control of 1,273 sq km of Russian territory, while the Russians were forced to halt their offensive on all operational-strategic fronts except the Pokrovsk front. Russia redeployed around 70,000 troops to the Kursk front, including airborne forces, marines and its best-trained motorised rifle units.

"This effectively gave us an opportunity to prepare reserves, give our troops some respite and restore the combat capability of units that had suffered losses in such heavy fighting. So the Kursk operation provided a major boost to the morale of our troops," Syrskyi said.

The journalist pointed out that Russian forces had meanwhile been able to advance rapidly towards Pokrovsk and asked the general whether it would have been better to use the resources committed to the Kursk operation to defend the eastern front.

Quote from Syrskyi: "No, it would not. The point is that only three understrength air assault brigades and two assault battalions were used as part of the offensive force on the Kursk front.

Other units were involved in the second echelon as consolidation forces, but they too were only at 60-70% strength. They were effectively holding the front in this sector and only advancing behind the brigades. Their primary task was to consolidate and hold the territory.

Two brigades spent a month preparing for the operation. The third, the 95th Brigade, was coming out of combat after heavy fighting on the Toretsk front and had very little time to restore its combat capability. So in practice, only one brigade attacked at full strength, while two brigades initially attacked with two battalions each, with their third battalions joining later after recovering their combat capability.

So if they had been deployed on the Pokrovsk front – and we regard the Pokrovsk front as two separate sectors, Dobropillia and Pokrovsk – the Russians had concentrated a force of almost 100,000 troops there. Those two brigades, and later the third, would not have made any difference, given their technical condition.

On the Kursk front, however, the enemy had very weak defences and units covering the state border that consisted mainly of conscripts and were stretched thinly along the front. Some battalions covered 10 km, others 12. So the defences there really were weak, and that was precisely why our forces achieved such enormous success.

When the enemy began redeploying its units, it was chaotic because there really was panic. I remember how much the Russian media were panicking at the time about the advance of our best brigades. The units being redeployed were thrown straight into battle and also suffered enormous losses.

According to the Russians' own figures, on some days during the fighting on the Kursk front, the casualty ratio for the enemy, which was hastily going over to the defensive, was one to five. In other words, the enemy suffered five times as many casualties while defending as our troops did while attacking. I hope that answers your question."

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