Now is the perfect time for Ukraine to be experimenting with ways to catch Russia by surprise, war analysts say

• With Ukraine on defense on the front lines, it should experiment with catching Russia off guard, war experts say.
• Its ongoing incursion into the Kursk region of Russia has given Ukraine some newfound initiative.

Ukraine faces a challenging defensive fight on the front lines for the foreseeable future, but that doesn't mean it can't get in a few good hits of its own against Russia.

While it waits to amass the ammunition, manpower, and resources to launch a large-scale, well-timed counteroffensive, Ukraine should experiment with ways to take the initiative and gain momentum, war analysts say.

Conflict experts from the American Enterprise Institute and Institute for the Study of War, Washington DC-based think tanks that have closely monitored the conflict, wrote in a new report that Ukraine should focus on conducting unexpected, shock upsets against Russia while the battlefield situation remains largely unchanged.

"Ukraine faces enormous challenges today and in the months to come," AEI's Frederick Kagan and ISW's Kimberly Kagan wrote with support from several other ISW conflict analysts. "Ukrainian forces," they argued, "are very unlikely to be able to initiate significant counteroffensive operations in 2024 and into 2025."

"Their ability to do so at all still rests on the accelerated and sustained provision of Western security assistance and the lifting of restrictions on the use of that assistance as well as on their ability to sustain an improved mobilization and training system," the Kagans wrote.

But that reality does not mean Ukrainian forces should, as the authors of the report noted, "plan simply to remain on the defensive for the indefinite future while trying to amass the resources needed for a counteroffensive."

Rather, Ukraine should use this period as "a time of experimentation," they said, explaining that doing so "should increasingly let Ukraine challenge Russian forces for the initiative in parts of the theater while exploring opportunities for future, more substantial counteroffensive operations as conditions permit."

Such a strategy isn't necessarily new for Ukraine, which has repeatedly found ways to deal unexpected blows to Russian forces despite a grueling ground fight.

These actions include the Kharkiv counteroffensive, long-range drone strikes into Russia, and devastating naval drone operations in the Black Sea, among others, but perhaps the most prominent example is the ongoing Ukrainian surprise invasion of the Kursk region of Russia, a shockingly complex mechanized assault into enemy lands that has left Moscow scrambling.

Ukraine's intentions in this assault appear unclear, although recent comments from Ukrainian officials, such as a post on X from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, suggest Ukraine hopes to hold the territory as a bargaining chip, something to trade for Russian-occupied territory in Ukraine.

Although details on the Ukrainian invasion are still limited, Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi told Zelenskyy on Monday that Ukraine's troops had seized just under 400 square miles of territory, about the same amount Russia has captured in Ukraine this year.

Kyiv has played its cards close to the vest on this assault, keeping secret its plans, including from close partners like the US, suggesting that it can pull off surprise attacks that allow it to, at least temporarily, take the battlefield initiative.

Ukraine has grappled with leaks, attributing some of the failures of the 2023 summer counteroffensive to this problem, as well as constant battlefield reconnaissance and surveillance that makes it difficult to maneuver. But the battlefield is not completely transparent, as some observers have argued, and surprises are still possible. The initiative can be retaken.

The Kagans argued in their report that Ukraine cannot "resign itself to the supposed reality of permanent positional warfare" because doing so "will not liberate the strategically vital lands Ukraine must win back in order to be secure against future Russian aggression."

"It will also protract the war and dramatically increase its costs to Ukraine and to Ukraine's supporters," they said. "Ukraine should thus seek every possible way of restoring maneuver to this war as soon as possible, daunting though that task appears."

The Kursk invasion caught the Kremlin off guard, either because it didn't detect it or adequately respond to it initially. And it has notably left Russian President Vladimir Putin in a precarious situation yet again, raising questions on how he can prove to citizens that Russia can secure its border and maintain its costly war effort without bringing the conflict home any further.