The battle of Kursk has unchained Ukraine from a failing war strategy

• Ukraine has faced the distressing prospect of gradually losing ground to larger Russian forces.
• But it regained the initiative with its attack into the Russian region of Kursk.
• Ukraine can build on this by presenting "the Russians with dilemmas they must solve," an expert said.

At the start of August, Ukraine seemed doomed to remain on the defensive, slowly but relentlessly being ground into retreat by Russian onslaughts.