With wealthy Russians all about finding those loopholes to escape Vladimir Putin’s draft and increasing reports of his inner circle plotting to find a successor, it sure sounds like the walls are closing in on the imperialistic president. This has followed an incredibly deadly war, which has encompassed most of 2022 and hasn’t turned out like Putin would have dreamed. That’s what happens when most Ukrainians, including grandmas with homemade explosives, stand up and push back while a majority of Russians seem to want nothing to do with heading to Ukraine to fight.
Such a difference in perspectives is to be expected when Putin’s forces are diminished due to death, grievous injury, and desertion, and all of that heavy artillery (including tanks) is simply left on the streets for Ukrainians to put to use. With all of that in mind, the Newsweek now passes on word from independent Russian news outlet Meduza, which reveals how Putin’s finally losing his country’s “elites,” who are cringing like crazy over what looks like an undeniable loss:
Sources close to the presidential administration (AP) and the Russian Federation called recent events “very painful.”
“There is an understanding that we lost the real war,” said elites and entrepreneurs described as being part of Putin’s inner circle. “People begin to think about how to live on, what place they would like to take in the future, what bet to make, what to play. [On the one hand] there will be revanchist sentiments. On the other hand, there will be a request for normalization and stabilization.”
From there, Putin’s also facing the embarrassment for not even being able to provide medical care for deployed troops, long after word spread that soldiers grew so frustrated that they threatened to turn their general into smithereens. It’s not a great look when video emerges of Russians being told to raid tampon drawers because that’s the only way that they’ll be able to stop their own bleeding after being shot. Yep, no wonder this has turned into an undeniable disaster, but Putin keeps hanging onto the fight.
(Via Newsweek)