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From a military pov it's a stupid choice, though they don't really have any good choices to make. They are not in the same position they were in with the Kharkiv offensive. Back then they had a large manpower advantage now they are increasingly at a disadvantage. The likelihood of it pulling Russian troops out of Donetsk is pretty close to zero. If seems like Russia has actually called Ukraine's bluff and doubled down on Prokrovsk and Toretsk so far. They already have ~30k reserves in the north due to the Kharkiv offensive. The whole point of that offensive was to force Ukraine to commit more forces to the north and away from Donetsk, pulling even more Ukrainian forces out of Donetsk to start a new offensive is almost a gift to Russia in the long run.
The tactics they are using might be working now, but it's more due to no one expecting anything this stupid. ISR is simply too good for rapid incursions deep into enemy territory. They will outrange their logistics and EW support and get picked off, which seems to already be happening in places like Gir'i where they attempted some more deep raids. Lots of fog of war still but it seems there is already a more static front forming around Sudzha in the east, Snagost in the west and Korenova to the north their are still saboteur groups operating further out but actual controlled territory hasn't moved much from these general areas since the initial raid. This is territory they will now have to try to defend without the advantage of years of built up defenses and established logistics routes for supplies, GL with that.
Guessing it's more politically motivated. PR and propaganda like a lot of people have been saying, though even western pro ukraine sources seemed surprised by this. I'm thinking it might be similar to Bibi's situation, Zelensky and co are cooked once the war ends, they seem to be getting increasing pressure with elections coming up to start negotiations or commit to a cease fire. By invading Kursk any negotiations are now off the table so they'll stay in power for longer. Not sure what the long term goal is, but I guess if you're hanging off a cliff's edge you cling to whatever you got.
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