Logo: to the web site of the Swedish Defence University

The war in Ukraine is often portrayed as a transparent battlefield, where ISR makes concealment difficult. Yet Ukrainian forces achieved operational surprise when they crossed into Russia’s Kursk Oblast on the 6th of August 2024. This thesis explains how surprise was possible under high transparency by tracing the causal mechanisms behind the success of the operation. Using a theory-testing single-case design and process tracing, the study operationalizes six routes to surprise—time, space, method, technology, deception, and OPSEC—and evaluates predicted empirical traces in open-source material (institutional reporting, news articles, social media, and statements). The thesis’s main contribution is the development of a synthesized theoretical framework for achieving military surprise on a transparent battlefield by creating, protecting, and exploiting localized, temporary windows of opacity. It further identifies counter-ISR as a pivotal enabling factor that warrants treatment as a distinct component of surprise generation.