Photo: Foto: Ecrusized, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
August 2024.
As part of the program Regional Initiative to Combat Disinformation “Western Balkans Anti-Disinformation Hub: Exposing Malign Influences through Watchdog Journalism”, we present you a new monthly analyses of fake news and disinformation narratives.
Kyiv’s Last Push“: Media Coverage of the Ukrainian Offensive in the Kursk Region
The escalation of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict marked August 2024. After several months of constant Russian advances in eastern Ukraine, the Ukrainian armed forces launched their first offensive operation on Russian territory in August.
On August 6, the Ukrainian army took control of the border with Russia and launched an offensive in the Kursk region. In the following weeks, Ukrainian forces made a breakthrough several tens of kilometers deep into the Kursk region, suppressing Russian military and paramilitary units. By the end of August, Ukraine controlled over 1,300 square kilometers of Russian territory within the Kursk region.
The Ukrainian offensive in the Kursk region is the first of its kind carried out by regular armed forces since 2022, marking the onset of Russian aggression against Ukraine. In the parts of Russian territory under its control, Ukraine established a temporary military administration. In mid-August, Russia declared a state of emergency and instituted a counter-terrorist operation regime in those border regions. The Russian army redeployed part of its units from lower-priority areas of the front to launch a counteroffensive.
Fighting in the Kursk region has intensified significantly in recent weeks, with reportedly higher losses on both sides, while the Ukrainian armed forces maintained control over most of the occupied territories.
The Ukrainian-Russian escalation of the conflict was one of the central topics in domestic pro-government and pro-Russian media during August. After the initial “surprise” at the Ukrainian advance, pro-Russian narratives about the inevitable Ukrainian defeat, the “desperate moves” of the Ukrainian authorities, and the (unsuccessful) Western campaign against Russia were renewed through domestic media coverage of the Kursk offensive.
“The operation failed,” “the biggest military failure in history,” and “Kyiv’s last blow”—how did domestic media report on the Ukrainian offensive in the Kursk region?
The fact is that the initially successful offensive of the Ukrainian armed forces in Kursk surprised many observers. This was reflected in domestic media, particularly in certain pro-government outlets known for promoting pro-Russian narratives tailored to their readership. For instance, on the Republika website, associated with the tabloid Serbian Telegraph, a previously unimaginable piece of news was published under the title, “Offensive in the Kursk Region Exposed Russia’s Weakness! Putin Stepped on Red Lines: All Threats Were Empty Guns.”
However, in the following weeks of August, the tone of reporting shifted noticeably, promoting the narrative of the inevitable military defeat of Ukrainian forces and the strategic negative implications of the “Ukrainian adventure in Kursk.” The influential pro-government tabloid Informer wrote in its characteristic style, highlighting articles with headlines like “A Disaster Has Struck! The Russians Beat the Ukrainians and Forced Them into a Difficult Choice,” “Zelensky Made a Catastrophic Mistake! Because of This Move Against Russia, He Will Have to Pay the Most Terrible Price,” “Did the Russians Hook Him?! Zelensky Rushed into Kursk Like a Madman,” and “This is the Biggest Military Failure in History! In the West, They Realized How Big a Mistake Was Made in Kursk; Now It’s Too Late.”
Informer relayed claims that the Ukrainian “invasion” of Russia “will go down in history as one of the biggest military failures of all time,” and that the Ukrainian leadership is “challenging Putin to burn them all down,” anticipating a “brutal response” from Moscow. They asserted that the invasion of Ukrainian armed forces in the Kursk region did not affect the overall course of the conflict with Russia and threatened to turn into a disaster. For Informer’s sources, the Ukrainian attack on Kursk represented an irrational use of its limited forces and a failed attempt to halt Russian offensives on other parts of the front, reinforcing Ukraine’s overall failure. The redeployment of additional forces to Kursk was said to increase the likelihood of Ukraine losing strategically important frontline cities in the eastern part of the country.
“If the invasion of the Kursk region turns into a battle for holding territory, while the weakened Ukrainian army loses key cities in the Donetsk People’s Republic, it could be the final blow for Zelensky,” wrote Informer, citing sources who remarked that “the Ukrainian armed forces can no longer effectively defend themselves.”
Portal Alo reported in a similar tone, publishing news about the allegedly huge losses of the Ukrainian army in Kursk and the “beginning of the (Russian) purge” in regions temporarily occupied by Ukraine. “The Point of No Return: While Everyone is Focused on Kursk, the Russians Are Reaching for the Key City; if It Falls, Everything Changes,” states the Alo text, summarizing the supposedly “bleak” prospects of Ukraine’s slow-moving offensive in the Kursk region, while at the same time, Russia is making advances on the Donetsk front, where the fiercest fighting has taken place. It concluded that Ukraine therefore failed to achieve the objectives of its penetration. Additionally, Alo wrote that “Ukraine will bitterly regret the incursion into the Kursk region,” noting that peace initiatives from the Russian side have been put on long-term pause due to “(Ukraine’s) attacks on civilians to sow fear in society… and how they would try to cause some kind of unrest in Russian society.”
The same anti-Ukrainian and anti-Western narratives were promoted through the pro-Russian Večernje Novosti. It is indicative of Novosti‘s assessment that the attack on the Kursk region is “Kyiv’s last blow… because the reality is that Ukraine is facing a shortage of manpower… that morale in certain brigades is probably at zero, and that the losses… permeate society.” Controversial statements by the spokeswoman of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maria Zakharova, were also broadcast, including her condemnation of the “barbaric terrorist attacks of Kyiv” and her emphasis that “criminal scum from Kyiv will get what they deserve… and that the organizers and perpetrators of crimes, including their foreign sponsors, will answer for them.”
As expected, the writing of the Russian state-owned media operating in Serbia also fits this narrative. The domestic service of the Russian state-owned Sputnik highlighted news about how “Kyiv in the Kursk region has collapsed, and a mass retreat will follow,” claiming that “the Ukrainians were deceived… and that the Russian army crushes the remnants of the Ukrainian units.” “Ukrainian forces that entered the Kursk region did not foresee that Russia would fight to the end and not retreat,” Sputnik Serbia emphasized, claiming that Ukraine “lost everything” on the battlefield.
The Balkan portal of another Russian state media outlet, Russia Today (RT), took its reporting on the Ukrainian Kursk offensive a step further by making (obscure) comparisons between Ukrainian President Zelensky and Hitler, as well as the Battle of Kursk in World War II. “Today, Kursk is being persecuted in the same way by the Zelensky regime, whose goal is to seize the territory and the Kursk nuclear power plant… and the current Ukrainian neo-Nazis are just as inhumane to civilians as the Nazis,” RT reported, quoting an interlocutor. Additionally, RT promoted traditional broader anti-Western narratives by equating the Ukrainian offensive with a NATO invasion, with interlocutors claiming that “the failed operation was actually carried out by the North Atlantic Alliance,” and that “nothing happens in Kyiv without the approval or leadership of the United States… and that the operation will most likely be a real disaster.”
The Ukrainian offensive in the Kursk region has been ongoing for several weeks. After the initial rapid penetration, the further advance of the Ukrainian armed forces has been slowed down by partial Russian successes and the retaking of control over several settlements. The fighting in Kursk is gradually turning into a scenario similar to that seen on other fronts in Ukraine—long-term attrition with slow and minimal movement of the front lines.
Information about losses on both sides is conflicting and should be taken with a grain of salt, as they are often an element of the propaganda war between Kyiv and Moscow. The fact is that Ukraine currently maintains stable control over the largest part of the conquered territory, even after the launch of the Russian counter-offensive. It remains an open question whether and how quickly Russia will regain complete control over the region, despite the sensationalist allegations in domestic media. The immediate tactical and operational goals of Ukraine—transferring the armed conflict to Russian territory, capturing Russian troops, cutting off certain supply lines, and diverting Russian forces from other parts of the front—have been achieved to some extent.
On the other hand, as evaluated in Foreign Policy, it is questionable what long-term strategic importance the Ukrainian leadership attaches to the offensive in the Kursk region and whether the occupied territories can even be considered a permanent “pledge” in potential peace negotiations between the two sides. This assessment is justified, though not to the extent emphasized by domestic pro-government and pro-Russian media at this moment. In the coming period, there may be an overload and overstretching of the Ukrainian armed forces, which have limited manpower and resources at their disposal, leading to a necessary narrowing of the front either in the Kursk region or in the east of Ukraine.
Author: Igor Mirosavljević