The result of these humiliations was, for lack of a better term, the shrinkage of putin in the international arena – Brian Whitmore

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Ukraine’s Kursk offensive marks putin’s third major humiliation of the war, writes Brian Whitmore, a nonresident senior fellow at the Eurasia Center and host of the Power Vertical podcast for atlanticcouncil.org. According to him, we are now living in a reality where Ukraine has launched an incursion into russian territory. As of this moment, Ukraine is occupying an area of russian land approximately equivalent to the size of New York City.

Initially, the routing of russian forces during the battle of Kyiv marked a significant setback for putin in the early stages of his invasion of Ukraine. The withdrawal of russian troops from the vicinity of the Ukrainian capital in March 2022 was not only embarrassing but was soon compounded by further military defeats for the kremlin, notably the sinking of the Moskva, the flagship of russia’s Black Sea Fleet, by Ukrainian forces in April 2022, Whitmore writes.

putin’s second major military setback did not originate from Ukraine but rather from his own inner circle. The mutiny led by Yevgeniy Prigozhin in June 2023, involving his mercenary group, the Wagner Group, revealed profound fissures within the russian political elite and highlighted the underlying weaknesses and decay within the russian Armed Forces. The third significant humiliation occurred in August 2024, when the Ukrainian Armed Forces launched a surprise invasion of Kursk Oblast. This operation, which was meticulously planned and executed in secrecy, took the kremlin by surprise and dramatically altered the prevailing narrative of the conflict, Whitmore writes.

The result of these humiliations led to “the shrinkage of putin in the international arena.” putin no longer appears as a towering master strategist; instead, he seems small, Whitmore writes.

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