Through the summer, the mood in Ukraine was darkening. Daily air alerts. Burning and ruined power plants, hospitals, apartment blocks and shopping centers. Reports of Russia capturing yet another Ukrainian settlement. Mounting casualties. International military assistance increasingly looking like too little, too late. Breaking with his cool, steadfast optimism, a friend of mine in Ukraine lamented: “The West is cowardly. They don’t help us enough. They fear Putin too much.”

It was not just his view. In my opinion polls in May and June with Ukraine’s National Academy of Sciences Institute of Sociology — funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation — 78% of 477 Ukrainians we tracked saw Western military aid as insufficient for Ukraine to repel Russia’s invasion — up from 65% a year ago.

Then came Aug. 6, and since then my family, friends and colleagues have started sounding cautiously upbeat.

That was the day Ukrainian forces crossed into Russia’s Kursk province. Seizing more territory from Russia in days than Russia seized from Ukraine in a year, Ukrainian troops cut off vital supply roads, blew up two key bridges, destroyed Russian forces heading toward Ukraine, captured an underground ammunition depot and took hundreds of Russian prisoners of war, with some entire units surrendering.

It is now Moscow, not Kyiv, asking to swap prisoners. Russian units started relocating toward this region and away from other fronts in the war, potentially easing the pressure on Ukraine’s defenses.

Can these successes give Ukraine leverage to end the war? The answer is twofold.

On one hand, Russia’s war machine is huge, its coffers are brimming with cash from energy exports, and it gets drones, missiles and shells from Iran and North Korea. While Ukraine scores in Kursk, Russia, on average, keeps firing 4,000 artillery rounds, launching 100 massive glide bombs and mounting more than 120 infantry assaults along the 600-mile front every day. Russian ground forces close in on Pokrovsk, a critical stronghold in Ukraine’s east. Putin doesn’t budge.

On the other hand, Ukraine’s push north is precisely the kind of action that stands the best chance of eventually bringing this war to an end. Critically, Ukraine has signaled to the Kremlin that it has the audacity to surprise Russia and do things Russian forces may be unable to counter. Think of Operation Ocean Venture of the 1980s: U.S. air sorties deep into Russia from carriers improbably parked in icy Norwegian fjords ultimately convinced the Soviet top brass they could not stop us. This helped end the Cold War.

It is Putin now who is on the defensive and has to guess. Where may Ukrainian forces move next, given the absence of defense lines? Can they strike the Russian forces advancing on Ukraine from the rear? Would they attempt to take over the Kursk nuclear power plant? What may they do after seizing the only hub through which Russia’s natural gas flows to Europe?

History tells us that to end the war Ukraine will need to keep surprising Russia. And Ukraine will need U.S. help. Some support is already happening: While Ukraine uses Western military gear inside Russia, the Biden administration has not publicly called on Kyiv to pull back. Showing bipartisan support, U.S. Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) visited Kyiv and called Ukraine’s Kursk operation “bold and brilliant.” These are important signals to Putin that he cannot endlessly exploit U.S. fears of escalation and U.S. self-deterrence.

More will be needed. Getting Moscow to face more uncertainty is key. The obvious next move is to lift the American ban on how far inside Russia Ukraine can fire the longer-range weapons Washington and its allies have provided, while helping Ukraine stay committed to its disciplined practice of restricting strikes to military and related targets. The goal is not for Ukraine to wantonly destroy any Russian airfield or shoot down any Russian warplane as far as the Caspian Sea, but it is key that Putin realize Kyiv can and might do so.

Ukraine would also benefit if the Biden administration would endorse Graham’s idea to make it possible for retired U.S. F-16 pilots to volunteer for service in Ukraine. This would reverse the unfortunate signals we sent to Moscow when it became known not enough Ukrainian pilots were trained to fly the F-16s Kyiv received this summer.

For the Kursk venture to become a game changer, we need to help Ukraine make Putin worry harder. Are any Russian warships, air defense systems, logistical hubs, lines of supply or communication infrastructure safe? What if Washington talks to Turkey about letting U.S. naval ships enter the Black Sea? What if ships carrying North Korean missiles to Russia are blockaded?

Americans have a real opportunity now not only to help Ukraine but also to seize the deterrence initiative and make Putin think twice before harming the U.S. or our allies anywhere.

Of course, Ukraine faces multiple risks as well. But as a friend in Kyiv summed it up: “Kursk raises big uncertainties. And 90% of them are not in Russia’s favor.”

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Ukrainian military says its forces have captured more territory in Russia in two weeks than Putin's troops have seized in Ukraine this year

• Ukraine has seized 1,263 square kilometers of Russian territory in two weeks of the Kursk invasion, per its estimates.

• That's more land than Russia has taken control of in Ukraine since the start of the year, according to available data.

• Ukraine's surprise incursion into Russia has slowed, but its forces continue to advance.

Ukraine's military leadership shared details Tuesday on how much of Russia's territory its troops have captured since their invasion of the Kursk region two weeks ago, and it is more than Moscow's forces have seized in Ukraine since the start of the year, according to available data.

Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian military, said on Tuesday that his forces currently control some 1,263 square kilometers (roughly 488 square miles) of Russian territory in Kursk and 93 settlements within that area.

Ukrainian forces have advanced around 28-35 kilometers (around 17-22 miles) deep into Kursk, Syrskyi said, according to a state media translation of his remarks to lawmakers.

Ukraine launched a surprise incursion into Russia's Kursk region on August 6, and after one week, Syrskyi said his troops had captured around 1,000 square kilometers (386 square miles) and 74 settlements. Although Kyiv's advances slowed in the second week of the invasion, its forces continued to capture territory and settlements.

Business Insider was unable to independently verify Syrskyi's latest figures. However, his assessment suggests that the Ukrainian gains from two weeks of fighting in Kursk have already surpassed the total land area that Russia has seized since the start of the year, per assessed territorial gains by analysts.

As of August 11, Russian forces occupied about 109,338 total square kilometers of Ukrainian territory, according to Mitch Belcher, a geospatial analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, which tracks battlefield movements and developments.

That figure includes 1,175 square kilometers that Russia captured in 2024, he told Business Insider last week.

By Tuesday, Russian forces occupied an assessed 109,416 square kilometers in Ukraine, George Barros, the geospatial-intelligence team lead and a Russia analyst at ISW, told BI.

This means Russia captured 78 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory in the days since August 11, putting its total at 1,253 square kilometers for the year so far. That area is slightly smaller than what Ukraine has said it has captured in Kursk over the past two weeks.

The shock Ukrainian invasion of Russian lands stunned Moscow and Kyiv's international allies, including the US, which was not made aware of the operation ahead of time.

Moscow is still trying to respond to the incursion — the biggest attack by a foreign enemy on Russian soil since the Second World War — two weeks later and has redirected some units from operations in and around Ukraine to the Kursk region.

In recent days, Ukraine's military has shared footage showing airstrikes on a few key Russian bridges and control centers in Kursk, indicating that Kyiv is including airpower in what appears to be a combined-arms operation within Russia.

Syrskyi said that the operation in Kursk is intended to create a "security zone" and stop Russia from being able to carry out attacks against Ukraine from within the area, according to state-run media outlet Ukrinform.

These stated goals are consistent with those that have been shared by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who stated on Sunday that the Kursk assault is aimed at "creating a buffer zone" on Russian territory.

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