Expert: Ukraine Used Putin’s Own ‘Tool’ Against Him
- 11.09.2024, 11:50
Dictators hate this the most.
Ukraine's Kursk operation is a form of psychological warfare. The irony is that for dictators like Putin, psychological warfare is the foundation of their rule.
This opinion was shared by defense and national security expert Michael Peck in an article for CEPA. The analyst noted that dictators wage psychological war “against their own populations to intimidate any potential political opposition. They wage it against other nations to convince rivals and potential victims that resistance is futile, and to corrode national debate”.
“Putin has spent years trying to undermine Ukraine, including disinformation, grabbing Crimea at gunpoint, and terror bombing Ukrainian cities with missiles and drones. And now the shoe is on the other foot. It is Putin who must react to Ukraine’s moves,” stated in the material.
Peck underlines that it is the chieftain of the Russians who has to wonder if he can trust his military to defend Russia’s borders. And it is Putin who has to explain to his people how the war that was supposed to forestall a mythical threat of NATO invasion ended up with foreign troops invading Russia.
“Critics of the Kursk operation point out that Putin has not redeployed troops from Eastern Ukraine, where Russians are continuing to advance slowly but steadily. They argue that Ukraine would have been better off using the assault troops at Kursk to reinforce its defenses in the east and south. But that’s exactly what Putin wants: to keep Ukraine dancing to Moscow’s tune, wearing out its best troops and equipment responding to crisis after crisis,” the author adds.
In his opinion, the Kursk operation allows Ukraine to inject uncertainty into the equation. “Putin can continue to lightly defend the Russia-Ukraine border while concentrating his forces to advance inside Ukraine. But that option no longer provides certainty: it’s now a calculated risk that Ukraine won’t attack some other part of Russia... And for all their bluster, dictators like Putin hate uncertainty more than anything else,” the analyst states.