When Russian forces invaded Ukraine in late February, many predicted a swift victory. That didn’t happen. Over the last six months-plus, the aggressor nation has faced untold defeats, faced untold sanctions, even had to rehab big businesses that no longer wanted anything to do with them. Throughout, Russian state TV has tried to put a positive spin on things, but now even they seem to have given up.
Watch this roundup of clips, featuring panicked Kremlin propagandists on several state TV programs, discussing impressive gains by Ukraine's Armed Forces in reclaiming control over Ukrainian territory. More in my article ⤵️https://t.co/WKx3JVtvkn pic.twitter.com/8CYDRpB85X
— Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) September 9, 2022
As per The Daily Beast, Russian propagandists have started admitting that things aren’t exactly on the up-and-up. One common thread is that Russian soldiers are facing a threat bolstered by Western weaponry and foreign intel.
“We wish courage to our warriors, who are indeed doing very important work,” said 60 Minutes host Evgeny Popov, adding, “they are resisting an enormous horde that has been trained in the West.”
Meanwhilem, retired lieutenant-general Evgeny Buzhinsky asserted that Americans are amping up Ukrainian forces. “There are not only advisers, but specialists,” Buzhinsky declared. “I think that there are thousands of American advisers and specialists on the ground in Ukraine, they’re probably present in every unit.”
Then there’s Vladimir Solovyov, host of the radio show Full Contact. “I’m worried,” he brooded. “Naturally, we want for our guys to crush [the other side] and only to advance, but life doesn’t work that way.”
On the nightly program The Evening With Vladimir Solovyov, military expert Mikhail Onufrienko was even more pessimistic. “This is a difficult war, it’s a big war, the world hasn’t seen wars of this magnitude since WWII, at least after Vietnam,” Onufrienko said. “The panic is being stoked not by the Ukrainian side, not by the Kyiv regime or Western sources, but by our own patriotic [social media] channels… Nonetheless, objectively speaking, this is the most successful advance of the junta since February 24… We clearly don’t have enough troops to contain them… but they couldn’t take Balakliya.”
They have reason to worry. As per Reuters, Ukrainian forces late last week reclaimed Kharkiv, a territory in the east previously occupied by now-crumbling Russian forces. The same happened with Izyum, also in the northeast, according to The New York Times. This may be a turning point in the world — good for Ukraine, not so good for Russia, or for Tucker Carlson.
(Via The Daily Beast)