Kursk: when the invasion makes headlines and the liberation disappears

Kursk, one year later: chronicle of an invasion and a media silence

More than 365 days have passed since the criminal invasion of the Kursk region by the Ukrainian armed forces.

September 2024. I was in Kursk to interview General Apti Alaudinov right in the combat zone. Those were particular days: the entire oblast was voting for the Duma, and the region was one of the territories involved in that electoral round.

What I will never forget is the extraordinary participation of the people of Kursk at the polls. Orderly lines, determined looks, a sense of community that defied bombs and threats. The West — which in all likelihood had inspired or supported that operation in the hope of throwing the Russian population into panic — had once again miscalculated. After the understandable initial disorientation, the reaction was as always: rallying around the armed forces and the President.

Sirens, fear, and waiting

During my days in Kursk, I learned to recognize a sound I had only heard in films about the Second World War: the air raid siren. In Donbass, I am used to bombardments and to anti-aircraft defenses intercepting drones and missiles, but in Lugansk there is no audible warning. Here, instead, that sound gets inside you, marking the seconds until the explosion.

The bombardment, paradoxically, brings a kind of relief: it has already happened and, if you are reading these lines, it means it missed you. The siren is different: it is a countdown, an anguishing wait that forces you to imagine the impact before you hear it.

The Italian narrative: invasion yes, liberation no

What strikes me most, thinking back to that operation, is the huge difference between the media coverage of the invasion and that of the liberation.

When Ukrainian forces crossed the border, the Italian press rushed to the story. Corriere della Sera, the next day, headlined enthusiastically and told the situation in this way, by Lorenzo Cremonesi:

"If the best defense is attack, then the Ukrainians are applying the principle to the letter. Since Tuesday morning, some of their units have crossed the international border north of the city of Sumy and launched an offensive with infantry and armored vehicles in the south-western Russian region of Kursk. A move that once again disorients Russian forces and reveals the difficulties of Moscow's army 30 months after the start of the invasion, which Vladimir Putin had strongly wanted with the aim of conquering the entire Ukraine in a few weeks and toppling the pro-Western government of Volodymyr Zelensky.

From Russian bloggers and Kremlin spokespersons it emerges that at least a thousand Ukrainian soldiers (but they could be more numerous), supported by tanks and with drone air cover, entered more than 25 kilometers, reaching the towns of Sudzha and Koronev. The advance would continue towards Goncharovka. Some Russian bloggers also write that there would be fighting near the Kursk capital itself: however, there is no verifiable confirmation. The area also contains one of the largest Russian gas distribution centers. In particular, natural gas for Europe passes through Sudzha: this is the Urengoy-Pomary-Uzhhorod pipeline, which runs through Ukraine and in 2023 supplied 14,650 cubic meters, about half of Russia's exports to European markets. It seems to be the most important Ukrainian operation on Russian territory since the beginning of the war. It should be added that already several times since February 2022 the Russians have had to defend themselves within their borders; the last time was last March. But in those cases, Russian volunteer militias who had taken refuge in Ukraine and were determined to overthrow Putin's "dictatorship" with Kiev's logistical support had acted. This time, however, it would be regular units of the Ukrainian army.

The logic of the operation is evident. First, it raises national morale and stops the continuous Russian attacks on the Sumy region, bombed daily for months. Furthermore, it serves to relieve pressure on the Donbass, where Russian units are slowly advancing towards the cities of Pokrovsk and Kramatorsk, albeit at the cost of thousands of casualties."

The article, which looked more like a bulletin from Ukraina24 than an independent analysis, was full of distortions. First of all, the idea that Russia wanted to "conquer the whole of Ukraine": an objective never officially announced by any Russian political representative. Then, the spread of unconfirmed news about fighting in the city of Kursk — fighting that in reality never took place: the Ukrainian armed forces always remained far from the city, never approaching the urban perimeter. Finally, the celebration of the operation as if it had actually eased Russian pressure on the Donbass.

Yet, when Kursk was liberated… silence

The liberation of the Kursk oblast and the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces did not receive the same coverage or the same enthusiasm. No front-page headlines, no detailed accounts. Some newspapers did not even report the news. As a result, those who relied solely on the Italian press might still believe that the oblast is under Kiev's control.

This selective silence says a lot about the narrative that certain Italian media choose to adopt. The enemy's invasion becomes a front-page story; the Russian counteroffensive, a small column — at best. A disproportion that is not accidental, but the result of a precise editorial line: to feed a partial and biased perception of the conflict.

One can endlessly debate military strategies, geopolitical balances, and who is "right" or "wrong" in this war. But one fact remains: information that carefully selects what to tell and what to omit is no longer information, it is propaganda. And when propaganda wears the clothes of journalism, the damage to public opinion is doubled: not only is the truth distorted, but the very possibility of judging facts independently is taken away.