Ukraine update: Widening gap between what Russian military can achieve and expectations of Russians

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Military analyst Rob Lee points out that, while the rest of the world is hearing about Russia’s defeat in the Battle of Kyiv, witnessing all the evidence of Russian atrocities in Bucha, and watching as the tally of destroyed equipment and casualties reaches shocking highs … that’s not what Russia is hearing. 

Not only are the folks back in Moscow getting a very rosy picture of success in the war, they are still being given a narrative in which Russia is fighting back the evil Nazi hordes, liberating grateful civilians, and trouncing a weak Ukrainian military. In the words of so many Russian apologists on social media, “everything is going exactly to plan.” A plan that includes approximately 15,000 dead Russian soldiers and over 2,400 lost tanks, transports, helicopters, and other vehicles. So far.

But the lies don’t stop with what has happened to this point. Russians are also hearing a false narrative that extends into the future, where commentators on Russian television are frequently calling for Ukraine to be utterly wiped from the map, or even for Russia to carry the war beyond the borders of Ukraine. They’re being whipped into a kind of victory or nothing frenzy.

“There appears to be a widening gap between what the Russian military can achieve at this point and the expectations of many Russians,” writes Lee. “The more Russian news presents a rosy picture of the war, the harder it will be for people to accept the likely terms of a compromise settlement.”

Russia can continue to lie about Nazis, and continue to lie about Bucha, and that may work for the people who consume nothing but Fox News Moscow Edition as their own possible outlet. But it will be harder to continue to lie about the thousands of missing soldiers, the inability to catch a flight to 90% of the world, the closed stores, silent factories, and empty shelves.

Was what Moscow would like to claim was a “feint” toward Kyiv, during which they took almost none of the Donbas, and don’t seem to have achieved any significant strategic goals, really worth the costs that Russia has paid and will continue to pay? And how is Moscow going to explain the mounting losses, even as Russian TV continues to claim that the Ukrainian military is weak, the people of Ukraine love Russia, and that Russian troops are being welcomed as liberators?

There’s no guarantee that Russians will ever wake up to Vladimir Putin’s deception, or become aware of the acts being carried out in their name. Sadly, there’s also no guarantee that anything would change even if they knew everything.
 

When Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy tried to present a video today following his talk to the UN Security Council, there were technical issues that caused a delay before it could be presented. If you missed it this morning, the video is linked below. Please be warned, the contents of the video are extremely disturbing, even if you’ve already seen some of these images.

Testing ways to provide meaningful graphics, this is another view of that salient that juts out from the Russian controlled area in the Donbas, extends out to the crossroads at Volokhiv Var, and extends down the M03 highway through Izyum. The small figures represent known positions of military advance, the red buildings occupied towns or villages, and the little spots of flame are recent actions.

In this case, the blue flame just west of Izyum represents the approximate location of the action in which a Russian helicopter was shot down using a skillfully-aimed anti-tank missile. The flame further to the south is the location of two Russian tanks destroyed by Ukrainian forces. The level of action here shows the importance of the location and the presence of both militaries in direct confrontation. Further to the east, Russia is shelling and bombing Ukrainian defenses those established trenches along the edge of the territory previously controlled by Russia. This continues to the south along the whole line of trenches, with Ukrainian forces facing heavy bombardment.