By the end of August, Ukrainian forces had captured over 1,500 square kilometers, including Sudza, the administrative center of the Sudzhansky district. Ukraine’s military goals have been both demonstrative and operational. Kyiv has shown that despite the loss of territory in Donbas, its army is gaining in strength with new recruits, weapons, and a growing domestic defense industry.

The offensive highlights the limitations of Russian combat. Moscow’s army only seizes territory when it obliterates towns and loses tens of thousands of untrained soldiers as Ukrainian troops move to more defensible ground. This attritional war has already eliminated over half a million Russian troops and large stocks of equipment, and the supply of both is not limitless as Russia’s economy is creaking.

Operationally, the seizure of Russian territory can help destroy facilities that enable rocket launches against Ukrainian cities, divert Russian troops and equipment from the Donbas and Zaporizhzhian fronts, and siphon off scarce resources to fortify other parts of Russia’s long borders. Ukraine’s weapons are also disrupting Russia’s communications, transportation, and energy infrastructure. Kyiv has now intensified its already successful drone war against military and fuel targets inside Russia.

Ukraine’s invasion reveals that Moscow’s military and internal security officials are incompetent, corrupt, and unable to defend their own citizens. The Prigozhin mutiny in June 2023 already exposed the fragility of internal security. Ukraine’s Kursk offensive has further revealed Russia’s failures, especially as Ukraine’s forces are able to hold and administer the lands they capture.

By seizing more territory in one month than Russians captured in a year, the Kursk operation has boosted the morale of Ukrainian troops and society. It also demonstrates to Russia’s citizens that they will be better off freed from Moscow’s grip. Unlike Russian troops in Ukraine who loot, rape, torture, and murder civilians, Ukraine’s military is disciplined and even provides sustenance to local residents deprived of resources when their government, police, and army fled in panic.

Ukrainian soldiers have been surprised by the number of people speaking Ukrainian in the liberated territories, indicating that the language and tradition have been preserved despite decades of Russification. The three oblasts of Kursk, Belgorod, and Bryansk belonged to the independent Ukrainian People’s Republic in 1918 following the collapse of the czarist empire and before the Bolshevik seizure of power.

Kyiv is now laying the groundwork for a free Russia by taking over the functions of local and regional governments. Some anti-Putinists have suggested that an alternative Russian government be established in the Kursk region. The Freedom of Russia Legion, which had previously penetrated the Belgorod region, wants to participate in the liberation of Russian territory while the independent Congress of People’s Deputies in exile is prepared to announce a provisional “Free Russia” administration. Kyiv will need to decide whether it wants to take on the burden of administering new territories or enable the creation of a friendly post-Muscovite Russian state on its border.

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The Ukrainian operation underscores to fearful Western officials that the Russian regime is brittle, its military is defeatable, and its state is heading toward collapse. Ordinary Russians have not reacted to defend their territory during the Ukrainian incursion, unlike the Ukrainian resistance to the Russian invasion in 2022. They have not flocked to join the armed forces or other security units. It appears the population has been conditioned to show loyalty to whomever is stronger.

This is why an alternative Russian government that supports Ukraine’s territorial integrity could rapidly garner support. At this potentially historic turning point, Washington must give Kyiv and the anti-imperialist Russian opposition a clear green light.

Janusz Bugajski is a senior fellow at the Jamestown Foundation in Washington, D.C. His recent book is Failed State: A Guide to Russia’s Rupture. His new book, to be published in October, is titled Pivotal Poland: Europe’s Rising Power.