Zelensky gives Putin bloody nose

The biggest drone strike on Moscow since Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in February 2022, with drones shot down close to the Kremlin, deepens the crisis facing the Russian despot following Kyiv’s audacious counterpunch into Russia’s Kursk region. More than two weeks into Kyiv’s advance across an astonishingly ill-defended border, evidence of the unexpected vulnerability of Russia’s machine is incontrovertible. The feebleness of an army made up largely of conscripts with little or no military training is clear. The failure of troop reinforcements rushed to Kursk by Putin to halt Ukraine’s advance, led by US-supplied Bradley tanks, shows the success of Western help for Kyiv.

The Russian tyrant cannot be in doubt about the hole he has dug himself into since he launched his ill-judged invasion of democratic Ukraine. Putin’s woes and the Russian fragility exposed by Kyiv’s incursion should remind Western nations of the importance of maintaining and lifting the help Ukraine needs to turn the tables.

The US and its Western allies have long warned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky against taking the war inside Russian territory, fearing that if he did so it would provoke Russia into embarking on greater atrocities, possibly even a nuclear response. That could yet happen. But the importance of the Kursk incursion is not just that it is exposing the embarrassing vulnerability of Putin’s ill-trained forces 30 months into what he misjudged would be a war that would be over in a few days. It is also boosting the morale of Ukraine’s people in their David-and-Goliath struggle.

After two years in which Russian citizens mostly supported the war, or were at least passive, the attack has prompted protests on social media from Russians in the affected regions. While Putin has tried to show resolve in the face of the first incursion of foreign troops into Russian territory since World War II, he has been “clearly rattled in television appearances”, US media reports.

The success of Kyiv’s advance inside Russia may not provide a definitive turning point in the war. Mr Zelensky’s counterpunch probably has much to do with the US election and concerns that Ukraine will face pressure from Washington to compromise with Russia if Donald Trump wins. The Republican Party’s reluctance to support further aid has caused serious apprehension in Kyiv. Ukraine’s interests, and those of the free world, lie in ensuring nothing is done to relieve the pain of the bloody nose Putin is suffering.