Successful poker players and successful generals share something in common. As the Kenny Rogers song goes, “you’ve got to know when to hold ’em” and “know when to fold ’em. Know when to walk away and know when to run.”
And more than three months after its Kursk offensive, it’s time for Ukraine to leave the table.
Whatever the counteroffensive is going to accomplish has been accomplished. Whatever it has failed to accomplish, it is too late now. Only a sucker stays in the game when the odds have changed.
Launching an offensive into Russia was always going to be a risky wager for Ukraine. Outnumbered and outgunned, the odds of achieving strategic success were never high to begin with. But to stay on the defensive and fight a war of attrition against a stronger foe would be a guaranteed loss. In war or in a casino, you work with the cards you have, not the ones you wish for.
Unlike its disastrous 2023 counteroffensive, Ukraine can’t be faulted this time for lack of preparation or lack of security. The Ukrainians managed to locate a weakly defended sector of the Russian line, concentrated its best brigades — at least 10,000 to 15,000 soldiers — and achieved tactical and operational surprise. Seizing 500 square miles of Russian territory is no minor achievement.
The problem was that too much was expected from the operation. Perhaps Russia would divert forces from its own offensive in southern Ukraine to protect the homeland? Surely, Putin’s government couldn’t afford to allow Russian soil to be conquered. Or, with a foreign invader on Russian soil for the first time since World War II, Putin’s regime would be embarrassed and anti-war sentiment in Russia inflamed?
And in a nation with a healthy political system of accountability, these things might have happened. For example, President Lyndon Johnson chose not to run for reelection after he made his “light at the end of the tunnel” speech on Vietnam just before the Tet Offensive. But Russia isn’t healthy. A government that treats its soldiers as human bullets — and its people as baby factories for a new generation of recruits — is immune to shame. Despite two years of a mismanaged war and 600,000 casualties, the only heads that roll belong to those who oppose Putin.
The despotic regime has treated the loss of Russian territory as a cost of doing business. Rather than diverting troops from its Donetsk assault, Moscow sealed off the penetration with a hodgepodge of second-line forces under the command of Putin’s former bodyguard. Now, Russia appears to be squeezing both sides of the Kursk salient with at least 50,000 troops, including more than 10,000 North Korean soldiers who don’t speak Russian, but can absorb a bullet as well as any Muscovite.
The Russian counterattack has already recaptured nearly half the land seized by Ukraine. Fighting inside Russia, without strong fortifications and the advantage of battles on home territory, Ukrainian troops are in a meatgrinder that will be chewed up by Russian artillery and drones.
Now is the time for Ukraine to cash in its winnings. It has changed the strategic calculus. Russia can no longer count on the luxury of strategic initiative, concentrating its forces when and where it wants while Ukraine is forced to react. Instead, Russian leaders will have to take a calculated risk: massing forces in Donetsk means leaving other sectors of the 600-mile front line weakly defended. It’s true that Ukraine lacks the resources to mount many large counteroffensives. But is Putin willing to take the chance?
Either way, it’s time to withdraw from the Kursk bulge, rest and refit the assault brigades, and redeploy them to threatened areas such as the Kharkiv, Donetsk and Pokrovsk sectors. Withdrawal under fire is painful, militarily and psychologically. Russian propaganda will portray this as a great victory, and neglect to mention the complacency and incompetence that allowed Ukraine to mount a surprise attack in the first place.
No less unpleasant will be the Western critics who decried Ukraine’s counteroffensive from the start. They argue that Ukraine’s best troops would have been more useful bolstering the battered units defending strategic towns like Pokrovsk.
Perhaps that would have been the wiser choice. Or, maybe those elite Ukrainians would have been smashed and smothered by Russian glide bombs and human wave infantry assaults. Just as the Germans discovered 80 years ago, if Russia wants to take a piece of ground, it will endure a near-infinite number of casualties to take it. The defender will run out of ammunition before the Russians run out of soldiers.
Given the imbalance of forces, Ukraine will have to remain on the strategic defensive. But defense is not the same as passivity. Punching bags don’t win wars.
Gambles cut both ways. There is the bet that is made, and the bet that is not made. Ukraine made its choice. Now it’s time to leave the game.
Michael Peck is a defense commentator. He can be found on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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