In the summer of 2024, the Ukrainian army took Russia – and the world – by surprise. kyiv suddenly rushed, two and a half years after the Russian invasion, into the territory of its enemy. In just a few days, the Ukrainians captured several hundred square kilometers and have held the fort ever since. But on Sunday, Moscow assured that Ukrainian troops had relaunched a new offensive in this cross-border region. According to a Russian source, cited by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), an American think tank, the Ukrainians now hold Cherkasskoe Porechnoe, a small town located a little less than 25 kilometers from Ukraine .
“You have to be careful. The Ukrainian authorities have not confirmed that it was a counter-offensive and the Russians claim to have repelled this breakthrough,” reacts Marie Dumoulin, director of the “Wider Europe” program of the ECFR European Council and specialist in post-Soviet space. On the ground, it is in reality the Russian army “reinforced by North Korean soldiers sacrificed to exhaust the Ukrainian defenses” which “seeks to reconquer what has been lost” and has launched an “offensive in the Kursk region », notes Jean-Sylvestre Mongrenier, expert in geopolitics and research director at the Thomas-More Institute.
“Take back control”
Everyone has an interest in conquering (or regaining) a few kilometers. “It's entirely likely that both sides will try to press their advantage ahead of Trump's inauguration [le 20 janvier]to the extent that no one knows what he wants to do – starting with himself, knowing the character”, slips Masha Cerovic, lecturer at EHESS and director of the Center for the Study of Russian Worlds, Caucasian and Central European (CERCEC). “The Ukrainians are trying to convince him that only much more resolute support for Ukraine would allow peace to be negotiated from a position of strength, and an offensive on Russian territory could be the type of show of force that would please Trump,” he added. she said.
“It’s clearly a way of regaining control or positioning ourselves in a stronger manner in anticipation of January 20 and the return of Donald Trump to power,” adds Marie Dumoulin, who evokes a “card to play on the territorial question. However, it is an asset that must be tempered. Because “this piece of Russian territory is not equivalent to the loss of Crimea, part of Donbass and the “land bridge” between the Sea of Azov and Crimea,” underlines Jean-Sylvestre Mongrenier. This “geostrategic asset” cannot therefore constitute the keystone of possible future negotiations.
Territories, the least of disputes
In reality, the question of territories paradoxically turns out to be “the simplest part of any negotiation” between Russia and Ukraine, asserts Masha Cerovic. “Russia does not originally have well-defined territorial ambitions in Ukraine: it takes what its army gives it. What the Russian government wants is to reestablish control over the country, without going through territorial conquest,” explains the director of the Center for the Study of the Russian, Caucasian and Central European Worlds (CERCEC). At the dawn of the Russian war of aggression, the Kremlin's objective was, in fact, to take kyiv in a few days in order to overthrow the government in place.
The unexpected resistance of the Ukrainians forced Moscow to employ a new strategy, that of a long war whose negotiated outcome would allow it to achieve its ends (notably political) in Ukraine. “Vladimir Putin embarked on this major offensive not to resolve a minor territorial dispute, but to erase the Ukrainian nation-state from the map and reconstitute the geopolitical sphere of the former USSR,” adds Jean-Sylvestre Mongrenier . If Russia and Ukraine finally sit down in 2025 to try to reach an agreement, their positions could well be irreconcilable.
“Ukraine wants the independence and sovereignty of its country but also security guarantees decisive enough to prevent new Russian aggression,” explains Marie Dumoulin. Today, “all the plans proposed by various American or European “experts” include security guarantees for Ukraine which are unacceptable for Russia,” underlines Masha Cerovic. But giving up these guarantees would also constitute a dangerous game. Because, as Jean-Sylvestre Mongrenier reminds us, the agreement would then only constitute a “ceasefire”. And the latter could give “Vladimir Putin the time and oxygen necessary to resume the attack against Ukraine or another country located on the Baltic-Black Sea axis”.
