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- Zelenskyy said that he kept the Kursk offensive under wraps even from allied nations.
- The Ukrainian president pushed back on Western doubts about unconstrained Ukrainian assaults.
- Analysts say he may have also been mindful of past leaks of Ukrainian plans.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy sent a defiant message to Ukraine's allies on Monday about why the Kursk offensive was kept under wraps, even from them.
Zelenskyy spoke as the incursion entered its third week, saying that Ukraine controlled 91 settlements and almost 500 square miles of territory in the western Russian region.
The operation's planning was kept a secret from the West because "many representatives of the international community would have said that it was unrealistic and it crossed Russia's main red line," Zelenskyy said, according to Ukrainska Pravda's translation.
He added that it had destroyed the "whole naive illusory concept of Russia's so-called red lines, which prevailed in some partners' assessment of the war."
Others, however, have also pointed to the secrecy as an effort to avoid leaks, which were partly blamed for the failure of last summer's Ukrainian offensive.
Zelenskyy had a point to prove
The tight operational security around the Kursk assault is remarkable for both political and military reasons.
The fact that the operation managed to keep a buildup of soldiers and heavy equipment at the Russian border largely under wraps has caused commentators to reassess an apparent truism of the Ukraine war: that in the age of drone warfare, everything and everyone is under surveillance.
But Zelenskyy's comments also speak of another area of concealment — this time from his closest allies.
Throughout the war, Western military aid has been offered conditionally and in fits and spurts over fears of provoking Russia into escalating the conflict.
The White House did eventually greenlight some uses of its weapons on Russian soil, but with distinct limitations.
(Russia's foreign ministry has accused Ukraine of using US-supplied HIMARS to destroy bridges in Kursk, which Business Insider could not independently verify.)
President Vladimir Putin has deftly played on Western concerns, sending pointed warnings — and veiled references to his nuclear arsenal — whenever the West looked ready to take a new step in aiding Ukraine.
Many analysts are skeptical of Russia's red lines, noting that Putin has never upped the ante as threatened, and analysts have increasingly said these strictures have forced Ukraine to fight with one hand tied behind its back.
In May, Zelenskyy made his bluntest comments yet about this seeming reluctance to support a decisive blow to Russia.
Ukraine's partners "are afraid of Russia losing the war" and only want Ukraine to win "in such a way that Russia does not lose," he said, according to the Kyiv Independent.
Zelenskyy said the West fears "unpredictable geopolitics" from a Russian loss, adding: "I don't think it works that way."
A fear of leaks?
Sergej Sumlenny, founder of the European Resilience Initiative Center think tank, told Business Insider that the success of the Kursk attack so far "was possible only because Ukraine has not informed anyone in the West about the plans."
He pointed to a skirmish last year in Russia's Belgorod region, when there was an unconfirmed report of a pro-Ukrainian group using a US-supplied Humvee.
The incident — minor by comparison to the Kursk incursion — caused an uproar, he said.
"The whole Hill went nuts," he said, and the US quickly moved to distance itself from the incident.
Sumlenny said that another rationale for Zelenskyy's unwillingness to share intel on the Kursk offensive is also likely to be rooted in operational security.
He reasoned that the massive Pentagon leak of April 2023 exposed a wide range of information about Ukraine's planned counteroffensive.
That operation flopped, at the cost of many Ukrainian lives.
Months later, Zelenskyy said that the plans "were on the Kremlin's table before the counteroffensive actions began."
Zelenskyy said that Ukraine would prepare several plans to improve the security around future operations.
And though Zelenskyy didn't mention this in Monday's announcement, it appears those leaks have been top of mind with his inner circle recently.
Atlantic Council nonresident fellow Vladislav Davidzon, writing for Tablet Magazine, quoted an unnamed highly-placed member of Zelenskyy's team as saying: "We have learned some very hard lessons from the events of the previous counteroffensive.
"Last summer we told everyone what we were going to do and we all know how that turned out," the official continued. "Everyone knew what we were going to do and in which location we intended to strike."
In his Monday comments, Zelenskyy took a victory lap over the Kursk operation, arguing that it proved the success of a bold approach.
"When our Ukrainian defenders act like this, decisively and bravely, and when the operation is indeed well-prepared, Putin has no choice," he said.
Zelenskyy added: "And now the world sees that it is realistic, that it really works."