The author: General Piro Ahmetaj:
In the capacity of a Senior Expert on the National Security, Regional and NATO Matters, I have followed with my additional interests and responsibility the detailed dynamics of 900 days and nights of bloody fighting in the battlefield for Ukraine, and also participated in “tens of conferences of the Atlantic Council, the Institute of War, and panels of elite security experts/colleagues in the US, Brussels, Marshall Center, Germany, London, NATO Defense College in Rome, as well as the last 3 NATO Summits, respectively in Madrid-2022, Vilnius-2023 and Washington-2024, etc.”!
I take advantage of this opportunity to kindly bring to the memory of strategists and public opinion that I have constantly estimated in dozens of strategic assessments (published in Albania, Kosovo and even abroad) during the last 2,5 years, that: “sooner or later, the Putin will shamefully lose the neo-Nazis’ war and fall down to knees of the martyred Ukraine as well as the confrontation with Western values and the undefeated military power of the Transatlantic Alliance (USA/NATO/UK/ EU)”!
And thankfully, we are staying right here. After 2 years of semi-stoic confrontation, on July 6, 2024, the Ukrainian army undertook a military attack (on a 42 km front) that was not foreseen by most optimistic scenarios (including those of the author), i.e.: “a military attack organized under a complete strategic surprise which concluded with the occupation of the Kursk region (approximately the area of New York City or Tirana region), within Russian territory, a very important region served as a critical infrastructure for supporting the Russian criminal war machine in Ukraine”.
It remains too early to calculate the full significance of Ukraine’s military intervention in the Kursk region, which nevertheless marks the first time since World War II that foreign troops have invaded Russian territory. But, considering the initial Putin reaction and other senior officials in Kremlin, who are still trying to minimize the weight of this successful offensive of the Ukrainian army in Kursk, by describing it as: “a terrorist attack and an armed provocation against Russia’s sovereignty”, almost all strategists admit that the geostrategic weight far exceeds the military importance of this event.
On the other hand, I have also to strongly emphasize that, what has been confirmed by official Kiev, that: “Ukraine has never had and never has any intention of occupying Kursk, and not even one square meter of the Russian territory, but it is the right of the doctrine of sovereign defense of Ukraine to destroy (by any means) as well as take control of one of the neuralgic points of the infrastructure for the military and logistic support of the enemy (Russia) against the territorial sovereignty of Ukraine”.
Anyway, I will further present a strategic summary of “why the invasion of Kursk, constitutes one of the three humiliations, or the third great humiliations that Putin has suffered from February 24, 2022 – August 2024”, when it started the war, as following:
First Humiliation (February-September 2022):
The failure of the attack of the Russian forces, or the Putinist machine, has shown up since the start of the war for the occupation of Ukraine. The shameful withdrawal of Russian forces from the outskirts of the capital Kiev in March 2022, or in less than a month after the start of this neo-Nazi offensive, was followed by other military losses for the Kremlin, including the sinking of the submarine “Moskva”, or the pride of the flag of the Russian Fleet in the Black Sea, on April 14, 2022. There could be no greater shame for Russia than losing a submarine of geostrategic weight in a war against Ukraine, or a country with a limited/ modest navy!
In September and October 2022, Ukraine launched a counteroffensive to regain the strategic initiative of the war, liberating big parts of the territory occupied by Russia, such as the Kharkiv and Kherson regions, self-proclaimed by Putin with “referendums under bayonets, as a vital part of the mother Russia’s sovereignty”.
Moreover, the result of this first great humiliation was also followed by the Putin isolation and discredit in the international arena. So, when Russia started the war for the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, only Kim-Jong-Un and 4 sort of terrorist states supported it, while most geo-strategists believed that the war would end in a few weeks or at most on May 9, and “the great victory would be celebrated with flowers, songs and Russian dances” in Kiev. But it was still the end of 2022 (and even today), the Russian war machine “is crawling in a bloody and exhausted battle”, occupying less than 19% of Ukraine’s territory. In other words, Russia is no longer looking invincible, while Putin is looking even smaller or shorter than he actually is.
So, beyond Stalinist isolation, neo-Bolshevik propaganda, and rusty minds not only in Moscow and Belgrade, this week performance of Russian military power since the end of 2022 has significantly weakened Putin.
While also Ukraine’s kleptocrats, who were dreaming to return to the pre-war status quo, remained very disappointed too. In other words, Ukraine successfully stopped the invasion of their country, while Kremlin continued to be more isolated and impoverished country, and so setting the stage for the next great humiliation of Putin’s over-power.
The Second Humiliation (June-August 2023):
Putinist-Russia’s second great humiliation came not only from Ukraine’s stoic resistance and the West’s unconditional support, but also from within the Kremlin’s criminal machinery. The rebellion in June 2023 by Prigozhin and the army of mercenaries around him (the Wagner Group), exposed deep cracks in the political elite and the cohesion of the Russian nation around the war; demonstrated the decay of morale in the military as well as within the chain of command of the Russian Armed Forces.
That Prigozhin, a close friend of Putin’s since the 1990s, would launch a rebellion against the Kremlin illustrated the dangers of “entrepreneurial politics,” that is, handing over national security and defense responsibilities to private sector and actors, or to the trusted Putinist oligarchy. These paramilitary (non-official) structures would have worked well only if the Russian leader remained strong. While this case showed that Putin was weak, that’s why the situation got out of control until it worsened to Prigozhin’s (Wagner Group) rebellion.
And the fact that Prigozhin could take control of the city of Rostov-on-Don to be welcomed as a hero and march his mercenaries north to the outskirts of Voronezh, some 300 miles from Moscow, shows that Putin’s superpower ship was about to sink.
Prigozhin, of course, paid the price for the rebellion, dying in an “air crash” along with his close staff (9 members), including Wagner co-founder Dmitry Utkin, on August 23, 2023. But according to Western intelligence sources, the crash was no accident, but a well-orchestrated assassination attempt by Putin’s senior aide Nikolai Patrushev. However, this story shames both parties.
Thus, Putin’s second great humiliation deepened not only the divisions in Russia’s political and governing elite exposed by the non-occupation of Ukraine, but also the fundamental weakness of the armed forces in fulfilling the constitutional mission: “defense of the sovranity of the motherland”! This, in turn, created the ground for the next humiliation, certainly the biggest but not the last of Putinist Russia..
The Third Great Humiliation (August 6, 2024):
The recent occupation of the Kursk region by the Ukrainian FA was planned and executed in strict strategic secrecy, bringing a great shock for the fortunes of the war. Instead of the constant (disinformation) media noise about some operational victories of the Russian army in Donbas, the New York Times sarcastically described the occupation of Kursk as: “an journey a gamble by the Ukrainian troops”.
From the mass surrender of Russian troops and the chaotic evacuation of civilians, to the advances of Ukrainian forces deeper (about 30 km) into Russian territory, the Kursk operation exposed the weakness of not only the FA and the Russian state, but also warned of the end of empire. of Putinist Russia.
During his (Putin’s) rule of about a quarter of a century, the Putin regime’s contract with the solidarity of society and the cohesion of the Russian nation has been based on the restoration of the greatness and imperial ambitions lost after the 1990s. But together with the “occupation of Kursk ” it seems that Putin’s government/regime has (badly) failed in fulfilling the basic responsibilities of any normal state: “protecting the territorial integrity and its citizens from foreign invasion”. While the fact that Putin has tasked one of his former bodyguards, Alexei Dyum (whom the Russian media calls Russia’s “shadow defense minister”) to end the offensive in Ukraine, demonstrates the panic as well as the fate of to the recently appointed defense minister (Belousov), who seems to have (badly) disappointed the Kremlin: “as he did not accomplish the task”!
However, the circumstances, scale and military consequences of Krusk’s daring attack/invasion of Ukraine are still incomplete. It may even turn out, as former US Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried commented: “a George Washington crossing the Delaware River (1776)”!
While in a clever post Australian General ® Mick Ryan pointed out that after this successful incursion, Ukraine has 2 options: “(a) try to keep the territory it has captured inside Russia (Kursk), or (b) withdraw in Ukraine, having achieved the political goal of humiliating the strategic superiority of the Kremlin in the war”. On the other hand, Putin is also facing a very difficult choice if he will have to withdraw (as is actually happening) ground troops from the front in eastern Ukraine to retake Russian territory in the Kursk region!?
Regardless of the military scenarios, political damage has been already caused and has its roots not only in military impotence but primarily in the neo-Stalinist policy of the Kremlin. That being said, the Russian state “under the occupation of Putin (the KGB)” essentially resembles the characteristics of an organized crime organization, as the strategy, approach, weaponry and military threats are the same as those of a mafia family. While, as is known, the most destabilizing moment, as well as behaving like a “wounded beast”, for a criminal gang is likewise as when the mafia boss looks weak…!
Having into consideration the above, we repeat that the Kursk battlefield, from that of the glory of the Red Army 81 years ago (July 12, 1943), this time (August 6, 2024) will mark not only the beginning of the rollover towards the shameful defeat of the war that awaits Putin in Ukraine (a nation of martyrs and a sovereign country), but also of kneeling and humiliation in the face of military power as well as democratic values, credibility and geopolitical interests of the Transatlantic Alliance (USA/NATO/EU)!
In addition, it would be unfair not to welcome the relevant efforts of Albania, as a result of the representation alongside the USA in the Security Council/UN; the active role and unconditional support of decision-making in NATO, as well as the more than modest contributions that Albania has given over the past 30 months to Ukraine in this “life or death” confrontation with the common evil.
However, with the status of an expert for weighing the risks and opportunities of (in/after) the war, I would like to advise the political and state factors of Tirana and Pristina that: “the shameful loss of the war, the international discredit and the economic collapse that awaits Russia (as a consequence of Serbia’s weight in the Balkans) constitutes a golden geopolitical circumstance for the benefit of the factoring of RS at the tables of major decision-making (USA/NATO/EU) to protect and develop our national interests in the region, the Mediterranean, etc. !
May God bless the victory in Ukraine, also the military power of NATO, democratic values and the Euro-Atlantic future of our Nation (Albania) to be likewise the USA and all of Europe.
