Ukraine exposed Russia's sluggish military command with its Kursk invasion, analysts say

• Ukraine last week launched its deepest incursion into Russian territory since the war began.
• Military experts believe Russian commanders were caught off guard.

Russian military commanders are facing criticism over their botched response to Ukraine's audacious incursion into Russia's Kursk region.

Ukraine last week took the Russian military by surprise, launching an attack in the Kursk region that by the weekend had reached around 18 miles into Russian territory.

Russian forces appear to have been taken totally off guard in the attack, with the incursion a significant humiliation for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Kremlin declared a state of emergency in the region and has boosted its forces to drive the Ukrainian military back.

However, military experts are questioning how Russian commanders could be so unprepared in what was supposed to be a heavily-defended border region.

In a Telegram post on Friday, Russian military expert Vladislav Shurygin said that Ukraine had exposed serious problems with Russia's command.

He alleged that Russian commanders had ignored intelligence that Ukraine was planning the cross-border incursion and failed to prepare the region's defenses for a possible attack.

Ukraine, he said in comments cited by CNN, has "very skilfully and accurately chosen a different strategy - taking advantage of the bureaucratic rigidity and sluggishness of the Russian management system, to exhaust Russia with continuous unexpected strikes on sensitive infrastructure and the civilian population, provoking discontent, disappointment, and apathy."

The Institute for the Study of War, a US think tank, on Sunday cited a Russian milblogger saying that the Russian military's response attack has been confused, with units rapidly deployed from various regions to fight the incursion. It said those units struggled to communicate and coordinate with each other.

Sergei Markov, a Kremlin-connected political analyst, told The Washington Post last week there had been clear failings in the response to the attack.

"This is a blow because it is clear that the signal came from intelligence to the leadership, but … measures were not taken," Markov told the publication. "This is a failure of the entire system of intelligence, and since Putin is responsible for this, then it's clear this is a blow to Putin."

Rainer Saks, an Estonian security expert, told ERR last week that "the Ukrainian strike in the Kursk region has been successful mainly due to the fact that the Russian military command and political leadership were completely unprepared for this kind of event."

Russia's military commanders have been criticized throughout the two-year war on Ukraine for inept decisions that critics say have resulted in unnecessary casualties and tactical defeats.

In recent months, Russian military bloggers, who've long been an important source of information about the conflict, have expressed frustration at mistakes they say enabled Russian troops to be targeted in Ukrainian drone strikes, and that led to Russia's fleet being ousted from Black Sea bases after Ukrainian attacks.

The Russian military has made slow but incremental progress in its campaign in the Donetsk region of east Ukraine recently, tempering criticism.

Ukraine's Kursk incursion, though, has renewed questions about the effectiveness of Russia's military command, which, according to a March Congressional report, is often excessively rigid and slow to react to developments.

The Russian military is still attempting to drive back the Ukrainian invasion, with reports of fighting in the towns of Tolpino and Obshchy Kolodez.