Russia is forming territorial defense units to support the capture of the Kursk region..

Russian authorities are creating new voluntary territorial defense units in response to the ongoing Ukrainian offensive in the Kursk region, suggesting Vladimir Putin's reluctance to counter the offensive more broadly, including through a general mobilization, fearing public discontent or a large-scale redeployment of troops due to potential disruptions to Russia's offensive efforts in Eastern Ukraine. This is according to the think tank Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
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Servicemen of the 810th Separate Guards Naval Infantry Brigade of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation with a trophy Roshnel Senator, Kursk oblast (Picture source: Russian Fighters)

The latest report from ISW analysts notes that on August 29, the governor of the Kursk region, Alexei Smirnov, publicly announced the creation of the volunteer unit "BARS-Kursk" (BARS stands for the combat reserve of the Russian army), stating that its main function will be to "ensure security" in the Kursk region and the resettlement of border villages in the future.

The detachment would cooperate with the Russian army and the operational headquarters for counter-terrorism - which oversees the ongoing Russian response in the Kursk Oblast - and would also provide humanitarian aid to the inhabitants of the border villages.
The volunteers would sign six-month contracts, undergo training, and receive all the "necessary" weapons to carry out their tasks. Kursk Oblast officials posted a recruitment announcement for the detachment on August 24.

The spokesperson for the Ukrainian forces in Kharkiv, Colonel Vitaly Sarantsev, indicated that the Russian authorities were also forming "BARS-Bryansk" and "BARS-Belgorod" detachments, and that the three detachments would support the Russian Northern forces group. Sarantsev estimated that the three detachments would include a total of 4,921 volunteers.

The formation of these new volunteer BARS (Russian army combat reserve) detachments is consistent with the Kremlin's apparent strategy of avoiding redeploying experienced or combat-effective units engaged in fighting in the directions of Pokrovsk or Toretsk to the Kursk Oblast due to concerns about slowing the pace of Russian offensive operations in these more priority directions.

ISW notes that Putin has consistently resorted to voluntary and irregular formations to alleviate Russia's manpower constraints during the war and has avoided decreeing a general mobilization or another round of partial mobilization, both of which would be incredibly unpopular within Russian society.

Putin remains almost certainly extremely reluctant to declare a general mobilization and will likely continue to rely on irregular formations to address the ongoing Ukrainian incursion into the Kursk Oblast until Russian offensive operations peak in Eastern Ukraine - at which point, Putin might consider redeploying more combat-effective Russian forces from these directions to repel Ukrainian units across the border," the analysts wrote in the review.

As previously reported by several international media outlets, the American CIA estimates that Russia will launch a counter-offensive to attempt to retake territory in the Kursk region that is currently under Ukrainian control, noting that this would be a difficult task for the Russians.