The Russian leadership is having some really bad propaganda days. First they lost Kyiv, though they never had it; then they lost Kharkiv; then they lost a simple bridge crossing, for which they suffered a good deal of ridicule from Russian bloggers. In short, their invasion of Ukraine has been an amateurish bust — and the home folks are getting wise.
Now the Russian leadership is on the losing end of what should have been a winning propaganda message: the capture, finally, of Mariupol's Azovstal steel plant. The problem for Putin & Friends is that Russia has taken the plant via negotiations with Ukrainian officials, rather than taking it by force. Virtually no details of the surrender agreement have been released to the public, as The Guardian notes. Still, the Russian public has learned that there was no heroic storming of the plant.
This, evidently, is not The Russian Way — not as far as the Russian citizenry is concerned. Thus it has "generated some outrage and confusion on pro-Russian social media, rather than the celebration of the full capitulation of Mariupol that the Kremlin likely expected," observes the Institute for the Study of War. And that "possibly undermin[es] Russian information operations" — disinformation operations, rather.
Some of Russia's social media has decried the Russian Defense Ministry's negotiations with the very people The People were told are "Nazis" and "terrorists." Other bloggers have derided the Donetsk People's Republic for organizing the plant evacuation. They are also criticizing Russian officials for having created Ukrainian martyrs.
Russian milbloggers are incensed. They wanted blood. Having lost that opportunity for vicariously blazing guns, they're now demanding "the imprisonment or murder of surrendered Ukrainian servicemen." The ISW further notes that "the Kremlin has created large amounts of propaganda that portrayed successful Russian assaults on Azovstal without clearly setting conditions for surrender negotiations. Some Russians may find it difficult to reconcile the triumphant messaging with the abrupt negotiations leading to a negotiated surrender."
Ukrainians, meanwhile, are dwelling the most bittersweet of conditions. According to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry's Intelligence Directorate, "several units of the [Russian] 70th Guards Motor Rifle Brigade have already openly refused to take part in the war," reports The Kyiv Independent. Russian command's solution? "Servicemen who demanded to return to Russia were instead sent to the most dangerous part of the front." Nevertheless, the incident demonstrates that at least some Russian forces are nearing the mutiny stage, which, of course, will help to bring a swifter end to the war.
The New Voice reports that Ukraine's defense minister, Oleksii Reznikov, wrote on Facebook yesterday that 17 Russian battalions have been destroyed in less than three months. He added that in numbers of heavy weapons, however, the Russians still have the advantage over Ukraine, as it does in air power. The latter deficit has been a war-winning hindrance caused by the West's oversensitivity to Vladimir Putin's "feelings." Those feelings mustn't be ruffled, say too many Western leaders, while Putin is free to harm everyone's.
Defense Minister Reznikov also said that "the war is destroying the Ukrainian economy." Indeed. One investment group has estimated that Ukraine’s GDP will plummet by 39% if the war persists throughout the year. The nation's reconstruction costs will be astronomical, while in the meantime, the Russia-Ukraine war risks global food and migration crises as Russia carries on with its civilian atrocities. "With this in mind," said Reznikov, "we want to defeat the enemy and liberate our territories as soon as possible."
Ukraine could beat the the enemy, and soon, if it were properly supplied with right kinds of supplies and with the right timing of those supplies. Once again, impossible to overemphasize is that the Ukrainian army needs artillery, armored vehicles, multiple launch rocket systems and fighter jets and it needs them now and it needs them in extraordinary numbers. Actions such as the European Union imposing sanctions on Germany’s former chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, and Austria's ex-foreign minister, Karin Kneissl, will accomplish nothing on Ukraine's behalf.
The Russia-Ukraine war is not a proxy war, as Putin would have the world believe. It is instead a barbaric assault by an autocratic power on a much weaker, free, sovereign European nation. It is Eastern authoritarianism vs. Western democracy. It is brutality vs, human decency — and neither stops at any border. Ergo, this is a world war.
The West must fight it like one, even though it has the solace of doing so from afar, and with mere money. Russia is unraveling, which makes Ukraine's work easier. Ukraine is also dominating on the battlefield. Given all that, now should be the time for Ukraine to strike and strike hard. But, it needs those Western weapons.