Zelensky’s gambit
Our analyst looks at why the Ukrainians went into Russia
Since close to the beginning of the war in Ukraine, when Russia invaded its neighbor in February 2022, our analyst, Alexander Smukler of Montclair, has seen the moves of Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, and Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, as part of a much larger international realignment that he calls the “global game of thrones.” It’s a chess game played on a massive open-air board; its players are world leaders, and its pieces include conscripted, contract, and mercenary soldiers, oligarchs, tanks, munitions, and dragons’ teeth.
Mr. Smukler has the kind of overview that allows him to see what’s going on clearly. He was born in Moscow, to family with roots in Ukraine, and he grew up in a cheerless communal building not unlike the one in Saint Petersburg that formed Putin; he was one of the youngest refuseniks before he left the Soviet Union in early 1991, at 31, just months before the empire imploded. He had businesses in Ukraine and Russia, and he still has sources in both places.
And he was a high-level chess player.
Like the rest of the world, Mr. Smukler believed that it was possible that Ukraine could have gained a lot from the counteroffensive that it teased but didn’t quite deliver last summer. Since then, he’s been Cassandra-like as he considers Ukraine’s odds; Ukraine was weakening, he said; it was running out of manpower and morale and time. The United States and the EU were giving too little too late, and the sanctions weren’t working. Yes, Putin was dealing with some deficits, but his win seemed inevitable.
And then, just a few weeks ago, the head of Russia’s central bank, Elvira Nabiullina, gave a press conference where, astonishingly, she admitted that the country’s economy was in bad shape.
And then, to the world’s astonishment, Zelensky’s Ukrainian army, breaking the rules that penned them in their own country, unable to leave to hit back at the invading forces, attacked towns over the Russian border.
“It was a major unpredictable event,” Mr. Smukler said. “I call it Zelensky’s gambit.
“During a chess game, particularly at the beginning, you can sacrifice a pawn, or even an important figure, to get a tactical advantage or a better position.
“From a strategic point of view, the move doesn’t give him an advantage, but from a political and tactical view, it does. We have to admit that he is sacrificing a lot of human life; he is taking brigades from the front lines and spending it on this move.”
So what happened?
“About two weeks ago, the Ukrainians suddenly crossed the Russian border with about 10,000 fighters, and now about five brigades — 10,000 to 20,000 soldiers — are in the Kursk region.
“They broke through the Russian border easily, without a lot of casualties, and they invaded a huge area. Today, they control about 1,250 square kilometers. That’s bigger than the area that Russia occupied in Ukraine in all of 2024.
“They are occupying 92 villages and hamlets in the area, and a town, called Sudzha, about five miles from the border.
“Sudzha is a very important logistical hub for supplying the Russian army on the Ukrainian front. Also, Gazprom,” the Russian energy corporation, “has a major gas-pumping station there that supplies gas to Eastern Europe. It’s part of a major gas pipeline between the Soviet Union and its Eastern European allies, built in the late 1970s, that the Soviets used to control. Now, amazingly, it’s working at full capacity to help deliver gas to Hungary, Slovakia, and Austria.
“Today, those countries receive millions of gallons of Russian gas. It works very effectively, and it gives Russian between $1.2 and $2 billion in profits every year. And, interestingly, during the war, there has been no damage to the pipeline, even though it goes from Sudzha through Ukrainian territory. So, obviously, in both Ukraine and in Russia there are people very interested in not cutting off that pipeline.” Even now, when Ukraine has not only the part of the pipeline that goes through the country but also where it begins in Sudzha, it remains intact. That is not accidental, Mr. Smukler said.
According to a story in the Economist, Zelensky and Ukraine’s commander in chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi, planned the invasion of Kursk carefully, and took their time with it. “It was prepared with great attention to detail, and was very well organized,” Mr. Smukler said.
“In the past, Ukrainians have broken though the Russia border, especially in the Belgorad region, but they stay for only a day or two. They fulfill their tasks — they do things like destroy logistical hubs and munitions — and then they leave. They haven’t tried to control large territories. This time, they sent a lot of people — people who they desperately need on the front lines.”
It is important to remember that although Ukraine is big, it is dwarfed by Russia. It has far fewer citizens, and just about everybody who can fight already has fought or is fighting.
It’s just a little more than a year since a similar operation in Russia succeeded, at least at first. In late June 2023, Yevgeny Prigozhin moved his private militia, the Wagner Group, from Ukraine. “He had about 10,000 to 12,000 troopers, and he was going to Moscow,” Mr. Smukler said. “Wagner easily took a major Russian city, Rostov-on-Don, under their total military control, and nobody really tried to stop them.
“The same thing happened with the Ukrainians. They didn’t meet any defensive strength from the Russian side. During the first few days, the Russians were paralyzed. It was obvious that they had no clue that the Ukrainians would cross the border and invade such a large territory.”
(Of course, the story didn’t end particularly well for Prigozhin. About two months after his insurgency failed, he was blown up, perhaps not so mysteriously, when he was on a plane, en route from Moscow to Saint Petersburg. Everyone else on the plane died too.)
Russia has reacted to the Ukrainian invasion by evacuating civilians; so far, about 200,000 have been relocated. “Ukraine opened a humanitarian corridor in both directions for Russians who want to move,” Mr. Smukler said; refugees could go either east to Russia or west to Ukraine. It is likely that most chose to go farther into Russia, he added.
Until recently, that territory had been “peaceful farmland, always part of the Soviet or the Russian empire,” he said. Until the Soviet Union fell, there hadn’t been a border there at all. “There were a lot of ethnic Ukrainians, a lot of ethnic Russians, and a lot of mixed families.
“It is obvious now that in order for the Russians to liberate the area, to force the Ukrainian army out, they will have to use heavy artillery and bombard the whole area,” Mr. Smukler said. “So I assume that in the next few weeks we will see an enormous battle there, and that the Russians will use every possible weapon to force the Ukrainians out.
“Eventually, it will be entirely leveled.”
The area has a great deal of emotional resonance for Russians. “In 1943, one of the most important battles was fought there, between the Russians and the Germans,” Mr. Smukler said. “It’s called the Battle of Kursk; it was the second largest battle in the history of mankind, after the Battle of Stalingrad. There were about 6,000 tanks on both sides. About one million people died. This battle broke the neck of the Nazis.
“The 1943 battle was on much more territory, but the area in Kursk that the Ukrainians took is inside that area.
“And that’s so important, because the Russians are fighting back against the Ukrainians with propaganda, using 1943. They’re saying that they, the Russians, are fighting back against Nazis, or against Nazism. They’re making a link with the Great Patriotic War” — World War II — “and they’re saying, ‘Look. It’s back. We’re fighting in exactly the same place where we defeated them in 1943.
“They show pictures of videos of German tanks — Leopards, which the Germans have given Ukraine — and British Challenger 2 tanks, and they say that this is the next part of that war. They say that 200,000 people were displaced by Ukraine.
“Russia has gained a huge moral advantage with its own people.
“Ukraine knew that this would happen, but they hoped that it would create turmoil in Russian society. But now, I have come to the conclusion that it did the opposite. It created anger in Russia not against Putin but against the Ukrainians. Right now, it’s helping Putin.
“You have to know the Russian character. Until they lose millions of lives, nothing will happen inside Russia. Until the war comes to every household, they won’t condemn the war. They will fight.”
But, Mr. Smukler continued, “the Ukrainians gained a similar advantage and benefits.
“In the last six or seven months, Ukraine was losing, step by step. It was losing its own territory. And its army was weak and tired.
“This gave them a second wind. Zelensky gained a lot by giving Ukraine the understanding that the army is alive, that it is active, that not only can it defend itself, but it can go on the offensive.”
This was a political win for Zelensky, “and nobody in the world expected it,” Mr. Smukler said. “Not only did he cross the border, and occupied such a big territory, but to control it for so long means that now the Ukrainians can build a lot of defensive infrastructure to defend it. It will be difficult for the Russians to push them out. They are now creating and building up a fortress.”
And there’s another factor; it’s small now but might grow.
As the New York Times told readers in a story last week, the Ukrainians have imprisoned more than 300 Russian soldiers. They’re all conscripts, they’re young, most of them surrendered, some of them have been injured, and most of them have no idea why they’re there. They could be used as bargaining chips in a prisoner swap.
“According to all my sources, none of the Western leaders knew that Zelensky would do this, and none of them gave their approval. It means that the Ukrainians demonstrated that there are no more red lines for them. They are ready to cross any of them. This is a huge step in the escalation of the conflict.
“If you follow all the players in the global game of thrones, you would notice that not one Western leader said or published a statement about the operation,” Mr. Smukler said. Then he qualified himself. “They said things like we didn’t know this was going to happen, and that Ukraine has the right to defend itself — but everything they said was toothless.
“What’s really going on is under cover. We see only the tip of the iceberg. I’m sure that all the major players in the world now are unhappy with what the Ukrainians did. They’re scared.
“Zelensky did it and took responsibility for it, and obviously violated certain rules that were established between him and his allies, and used foreign equipment to do it.”
Mr. Smukler understands why.
“I think that Western leaders made a huge mistake when they did not allow him to use the equipment that they did send him on Russian territory. Zelensky used it anyway — he erased that red line — and he wanted to see the reactions.
“It’s obvious by now that he won, because there is no reaction on the surface. Nobody condemned him. They say that it is part of the Ukrainian defense strategy. They are diminishing and destroying Russian logistical hubs, cutting off the supply lines that go through enemy territory.
“And that is true. Zelensky is gaining a very real military benefit. The Ukrainians completely destroyed supply lines and logistical hubs. They just destroyed three major bridges, and that will create enormous problems for the Russians even if the Ukrainians withdraw their troops from the territory. It will take months for the Russians to restore the supply lines and rebuild the bridges.”
And there’s more.
“Zelensky demonstrated the weakness of the Russian army to the world. It became clear to everybody that because the Russians sent their army inside Ukraine, they don’t have anyone else to defend their borders. If you cross their borders, they have no capacity to defend their territory.
“So the most important point is that Zelensky demonstrated that Putin has enormous problems supplying his own army with cannon fodder” — that is, with young men whose deaths he is comfortable hastening — “and he badly needs to announce mobilization.
“But he is delaying, delaying, delaying.”
This brings us to Vladimir Putin’s dilemma.
“I have always said that Putin eventually will announce mobilization” — meaning that he will be able to draft vast numbers of conscripts — “because he lost so many lives already. He needs to replace them with new blood.”
Ukraine’s army posts estimates of Russia’s losses every day. True, those figures are not necessarily accurate. But they say that the Ukrainians estimate that so far, Russians have lost more than 600,000 fighters. That’s two-thirds of the number the country had before Putin invaded.
So those dead men must be replaced with the walking dead.
“But Putin is reluctant to announce mobilization because it’s a major political risk,” Mr. Smukler said.
He is caught on the horns of a dilemma.
“In order to reach his strategic goals, he has to mobilize at least 600,000 or 700,000 soldiers, and now we know that to defend his borders at the same time, he has to mobilize at least one million people.
“He will take a huge political risk if he takes one million people and throws them on the front line.
“And also he has no capacity to do that.” All those people would have to be fed, housed, dressed, armed, and trained.
“And if all those people were to be thrown on the front lines, that would mean that he would have to replace them in his military industry. Basically, it would mean that he would have to operate in the same way as the Soviet Union did. The men would be sent to the front lines and the women would be sent to the military factories.”
Yes, Putin is using North Koreans in the factories, but he can’t get as many people as quickly as he needs them. It’s not easy moving that many people that far, and then teaching them what to do in a foreign language and culture.
“As far as we know now, Putin is reluctant to take the political risk,” Mr. Smukler said. “He wants to avoid it as much as possible, even though now he is desperate for fresh new army units.” Even the propaganda showing that the Ukrainians are the new Nazis wouldn’t overcome the anger of families whose children have been sent off to die in an inexplicable war far from home.
It’s the same problem that Czar Nicholas II faced in 1914, when he was staffing the front lines to fight the Germans. “He mobilized more than a million people, and threw them on the Western front,” Mr. Smukler said. “That ignited the Russian Revolution. The czar was killed as a result of it.
“Now Putin is facing exactly the same problem. He knows the lessons of history. He is desperate to mobilize troops, but on the other hand he remembers what happened to the previous czar.
“And yes, Putin obviously considers himself to be the ruler of Russia, even more powerful than the previous czar.”
So what now?
“Putin is a good chess player,” Mr. Smukler said. “He understands what Zelensky is doing.”
Part of what Zelensky and Putin are doing is responding to what they see happening in the United States.
“Putin was waiting for the U.S. elections, because he was waiting for Trump to come back to power,” Mr. Smukler said. “If Trump were to win, Putin would immediately start negotiations. But Zelensky does not want to wait. He decided to use his chance to hit Russia inside its territory while Putin dithered. So Putin was waiting for November 5 to decide what to do, but now he can’t wait any more.
“He can’t have a Ukrainian enclave 350 or so miles from Moscow. If Ukraine puts its artillery there, it could hit major European Russian cities. So now Putin is in an enormously difficult situation. He must decide what to do.
“He has two choices — to start negotiations and lower the level of conflict, or to start mobilization. Mobilization will take months.
“Most importantly, Putin will have to close Russia’s borders and declare martial law in Russia. That’s what Zelensky wants. He wants Putin to go deep into martial law, to go deeper into the war with Ukraine. His major hope is that those actions would be the end of Putin’s regime.
“On the other hand, the Ukrainians keep losing territories in the Donbas,” Mr. Smukler said. “The Russians are slowly pushing them, and the Ukrainians are at risk of losing three major points in their defensive line.” Pokrovsk, Toretsk, and Chasov Yar are all at risk of falling to the enemy.
But, he concluded, “Zelensky is David and he is fighting against Goliath. David made an entirely unpredicted move, and in my mind he gained many more advantages than disadvantages. It gave a second wind to his army. He was able to boost the morale of his army, and gain their support.
“This was a major accomplishment.
“Zelensky again proved that he is an unpredictable and creative military and political leader.”
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