Ukraine's attack took perfect advantage of Russia's internal dysfunction, where nobody was in charge

• Russia's convoluted military structures likely hindered its ability to defend Kursk, experts say.
• Ukraine "knew where to press" to exploit its dysfunction, defense expert Dara Massicot wrote.

Ukraine exploited the disorganization of Russia's border defenses to make its surprise attack on Kursk, according to expert analyses.

The attack put pressure on "unclear leadership structures and lack of coordination" the Soufan Center think tank wrote in a briefing on Wednesday.

These served to "hinder the ability of Russian forces to respond effectively," its analysts said.

Ukrainian troops first burst through Russia's border last week, taking Russia by surprise.

Ukrainian forces have said they captured as many as 74 settlements in Kursk, spanning some 380 square miles of territory.

Multiple reports suggest that Russia was poorly prepared. Ukraine forces faced mostly conscripts, who quickly fled, The Wall Street Journal reported.

One Ukrainian soldier, identified only by a callsign, said he encountered "mainly kids doing their mandatory service."

As they advanced, reports emerged of hasty and disordered civilian evacuations, according to The Institute for the Study of War.

While Russia was caught on the hop, Ukraine likely spent weeks plotting the move, Patrick Bury, a military analyst at the UK's University of Bath, told Business Insider.

"It's gone off successfully because it's been carefully planned," he said. He noted that Ukraine navigated heavy battlefield surveillance to concentrate a grouping of armored vehicles, tanks, as well as air defenses and electronic warfare kit needed to defend them.

that Russian high command — including army chief Valery Gerasimov — received intel about the Ukrainian troop buildup, but did nothing about it.

During a public meeting on Monday, President Vladimir Putin ordered his troops to repel the Ukrainian forces.

Dara Massicot, an expert in Russian defense and security at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, expanded on the weaknesses of Russia's military organization in the region in a thread on X.

The response — which Russia is calling a "counter-terrorist operation" — still had no headquarters as of Monday and no clear sense of who should lead it, she wrote.

The following day a kind of answer came — Putin was said to have appointed a close aide, his former bodyguard, to be in charge.

Ukraine has "successfully exploited seams of responsibility" between three main bodies: Russia's FSB, or internal security service; Rosgvardia, the national guard; and the defense ministry, Massicot said.

They had overlapping missions. The FSB was meant to protect the border itself, but the MOD was to deal with the Ukrainians already within Russia, Massicot said.

Part of Russia's disarray may also be down to recent reorganizations of military districts and groupings, and a lack of coordination between them.

The military district containing Kursk was split in two a few months ago, complicating its ability to respond.

Another military grouping — the Northern Operational Group — was given a new commander and rerouted from defensive tasks to instead help the Russian invasion, Massicot wrote.

She said those soldiers remained "bogged down" near Ukraine's second city of Kharkiv, unable to help back home.

"Someone in Ukraine knew where to press," wrote Massicot.