Putin’s Disinformation Keeping The Truth From Its Own People – With more and more videos and still photos of Russian troops being killed and vehicles destroyed, it is clear that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has been much more costly in terms of men and equipment than the Russian military and President Vladimir Putin bargained for.
But the narrative coming out of Russia to their own people is obscuring the truth of what is unfolding on the ground. The national media in Russia is controlled by the government and they are skewing the narrative of what is happening in the war.
The Russians are very sensitive to what the Ukrainian television stations are reporting to the world and are being repeated. These reports are diametrically opposed to the Russian narrative. The television tower in Kyiv was targeted by Russian missiles on Tuesday, but according to Russian television, it was the Ukrainians that targeted their own tower.
The Russians still don’t refer to the ongoing war as an invasion, but a “special military operation” to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine. The fact that the Ukrainian president is Jewish and why he’d be a Nazi is a point that is just glossed over.
War Crimes Accusations From Both Sides:
The Russians accuse the Ukrainians of war crimes and using civilians as human shields according to TASS, the Russian government-controlled news agency, something both the Ukrainians have accused the Russian navy of doing in the Black Sea. In that incident, the Russian navy was accused of forcing a civilian ship, the Helt, to enter the dangerous zone of the Black Sea “so that the occupiers can cover themselves with a civilian ship as a human shield.” If they didn’t comply, the Russians threatened to fire on the ship.
“This is nothing but 21st-century piracy,” the Ukrainians said.
Russian television journalists are embedded with separatist units in the Donbas are reports are centered on their advances while the heavy fighting and casualties around Kyiv and Kharkiv are not mentioned. Russian television anchors refer to the videos of Russian equipment destroyed as “obvious fakes.”
Back in 2014, Putin had journalists harassed who tried to cover the funerals of troops killed in the Crimea, as he worried about casualty figures coming to light. The exact number of Russian casualties varies widely, with the Russians reporting virtually none, while Ukrainian military sources claim to have killed up to 5,300. The answer probably lies somewhere in the middle. Many US and NATO military analysts believe that the number is around 2,000 which is nearly what the US suffered in 20 years in Afghanistan.
Putin’s domestic support for the war would quickly evaporate if the numbers of casualties come to light. There are even reports from the Pentagon of entire units refusing to fight, with one report that Russian troops were puncturing their own gas tanks to avoid the fighting.
Russian 40-Mile Long Convoy Stalled in Ukraine:
With reports of Russian troops facing logistical shortages in the war, the 40-mile long convoy heading to Kyiv is also facing the same fuel and food shortages and now there are reports that the convoy has stalled.
The convoy was reported on Tuesday evening to be about 18 miles from Kyiv, which is where they were on Monday as reports were stating that the convoy was out of gas, which would leave them vulnerable to air attacks.
The long convoy was seen as a shift in Russian tactics and strategy as they look to encircle Kyiv. It is considered that the convoy, consisting of hundreds of mobile artillery pieces would be heavily protected from air attacks.
The few (about 20) Ukrainian Bayraktar TB2 armed drones, purchased from Turkey are taking a toll on Russian convoys especially fuel trucks and mobile missile launchers. Reports were surfacing that Russian battalion commanders were leaving air defense vehicles behind, in an overconfident mistake into believing that they would quickly sweep Ukraine’s military aside.
Steve Balestrieri is a 1945 National Security Columnist. He has served as a US Army Special Forces NCO and Warrant Officer before injuries forced his early separation. In addition to writing for 19fortyfive.com, he has covered the NFL for PatsFans.com for more than 10 years and his work was regularly featured in the Millbury-Sutton Chronicle and Grafton News newspapers in Massachusetts.
