“The truth is on our side, and truth is power! “Vladimir Putin exploded at the microphone in Red Square last week after the spectacular ceremony in which he announced the annexation of four large parts of Ukraine, summarizes the BBC.
“Victory will be ours!”
But in the real world it does they look completely different.
Even as the Russian president was signing his illegal annexation treaties to the Kremlin, Ukrainian forces were advancing deep into the territories he had just conquered.
Putin is happy with the Russian economy despite the sanctions
However, he expects the pressure of the punitive measures against Moscow to intensify
Hundreds of thousands of men fled Russia rather than being called to fight in the expanding war.
And things are going so badly on the battlefield that Putin and his loyalists are now reformulating what they once claimed to be. “denazification” of Ukraine and protection of Russian speakers, as an existential struggle against the entire “collective” West.
This is the truth and none of the facts are on Russia’s side.
“He’s in a blind spot. It seems does not see what is happeningRiddle Russia editor Anton Barbashin says about the Russian president.
Like many, the political scientist believes Putin was completely taken aback by the West’s strong support for Kiev, as well as Ukraine’s fierce resistance to the occupation.
Putin freed all students and graduate students from mobilization
The decree also affects private educational institutions
Today, at the age of 70, after more than 20 years in power, the Russian leader seems to have become a victim of his own system. His autocratic style of him hindered her access to solid intelligence.
“You can not question his ideas“explains Tatiana Stanovaya, head of the analysis company R.Politik.
“Everyone who works with Putin knows his image of the world and Ukraine, they know his expectations. They cannot provide him with information that contradicts his vision. That’s just how it works.”
ISW: Putin is preparing the ground for Shoigu to take the blame for Ukraine’s debacle
Steps towards annexation among Ukrainian successes
In the president’s final speech, delivered under the golden chandeliers of the Kremlin, he reaffirmed his vision of a new world order.
“Many of the major predictions the Kremlin was working on did not come true Putin doesn’t seem to have a plan B. except to keep pushing people to the front lines and hope that the numbers prevent Ukraine from advancing further, “believes Anton Barbashin.
“Pushing people to the fore” is a significant change in itself.
Vladimir Putin continues to call his invasion a “special military operation”, describing it as limited in scope and short-lived.
Many Russians have been able to accept it – even support it – as long as it didn’t concern them directly. But the mobilization of reservists has transformed something distant and abstract into a very close and personal risk.
Regional politicians are in competition Soviet-style to overfill their duescalling as many men as possible.
“This is a formative time. For most Russians, the war only started a few weeks ago,” says Anton Barbashin.
Restored
Does Putin change the status of “special operations” in Ukraine?
A new speech by the Russian president to the nation is expected
“In the first few months, the dead came mainly from the periphery and smaller towns. But the mobilization will eventually change that, as the coffins will return to Moscow and St. Petersburg.”
The summons sparked a barrage of social media comments from the wives and mothers of the recruits, those who didn’t rush to the borders when the mobilization was announced.
Some of their posts, in addition to the videos of the men themselves, reveals sad conditions: poor food, old weapons and a lack of basic medical supplies. Women discuss sending sanitary pads to dab men’s boots and tampons to dress their wounds.
The regional governor of the Kursk region described the conditions in several military units as “just terrible”, like to the point of not having uniforms.
But Russia’s mobilization mess and military embarrassment are driving more and more celebrities to speak up.
When the Liberals condemned the invasion of Ukraine, they were arrested and many are still behind bars.
Even if it is called war, it is illegal.
However, in pro-Kremlin circles, this word is now on the agenda, as are the harsh criticisms of the Russian military command.
MP Andrey Kartapolov was the last to ask the Defense Ministry this week to “stop lying” about Russia’s plight because “our people are anything but stupid.”
ISW: Russian military withdraws as Putin struggles to balance three factions in the “Russian world”
He cannot afford to lose the support of either of them
Margarita Simonyan, director of the television channel RT, cited Stalin’s practice of executing “cowardly” and “incompetent” generals.
But there is no public challenge to the invasion itself, let alone Vladimir Putin.
The state media now portrays the land grabbing of Ukraine as something much bigger, seemingly pushing the nation into a bigger struggle.
“IS our war on total Satanism“, none the less, Vladimir Solovyov told viewers this week.
“This is not about Ukraine. The West’s goal is clear. Regime change and the dismemberment of Russia so that it no longer exists,” he roared.
This is the “truth” in which Vladimir Putin believes, and therefore this moment of objective weakness for Russia is also a moment of risk.
