\u201cThe truth is on our side and truth is strength!\u201d Vladimir Putin boomed into a microphone on Red Square last week, after a grand ceremony at which he proclaimed four large chunks of Ukrainian territory to be part of Russia.<\/p>\n
\u201cVictory will be ours!\u201d<\/p>\n
But in the real world, things look very different.<\/p>\n
Even as Russia\u2019s president signed his illegal annexation treaties in the Kremlin, Ukrainian forces were advancing inside the areas he had just seized.<\/p>\n
Hundreds of thousands of men have been fleeing Russia rather than being drafted to fight in an expanding war.<\/p>\n
And things are going so badly on the battlefield that Mr Putin and his loyalists are now reframing what they once claimed was the \u201cde-Nazification\u201d of Ukraine and the protection of Russian speakers as an existential fight against the entire \u201ccollective\u201d West.<\/p>\n
That is the truth and none of it is on Russia\u2019s side.<\/p>\n
Victim of his system<\/h2>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s in a blind zone. It seems he\u2019s not really seeing what\u2019s happening,\u201d the editor of Riddle Russia, Anton Barbashin, argues of Russia\u2019s president.<\/p>\n
Like many, the political analyst believes that Mr Putin was caught completely off-guard by strong Western support for Kyiv, as well as Ukraine\u2019s own fierce resistance to occupation.<\/p>\n
As he turns 70 today, after more than 20 years in power, it seems Russia\u2019s leader has become a victim of his own system. His autocratic style is impeding his access to sound intelligence.<\/p>\n
GALEOTTI:\u00a0<\/strong>Seven key moments that made Putin<\/p>\n \u201cYou can\u2019t question his ideas,\u201d explains Tatyana Stanovaya, the head of R.Politik analysis firm.<\/p>\n \u201cEveryone who works with Mr Putin knows his picture of the world and of Ukraine, they know his expectations. They can\u2019t deliver him information that contradicts his vision. That\u2019s just how it works.\u201d<\/p>\n The president\u2019s latest address, delivered beneath the gilded Kremlin chandeliers, re-stated his vision of a new world order.<\/p>\n Getty Images<\/p>\n The ongoing collapse of Western hegemony is irreversible: things will never be the same. The battlefield to which destiny and history have called us is a battlefield for our peopleVladimir Putin<\/strong> It involves a mighty Russia, a cowed Western world that has been forced to learn respect and Kyiv subjugated once again to Moscow.<\/p>\n To attain that, Ukraine is Mr Putin\u2019s chosen battlefield.<\/p>\n Even as his ambitions appear most illusory, he looks in no mood to scale back.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of major calculations the Kremlin was working with did not pan out and it doesn\u2019t seem like Putin has a Plan B, other than keeping on pushing people to the front line and hoping that sheer numbers will prevent Ukraine from advancing further,\u201d Anton Barbashin believes.<\/p>\n \u201cPushing people to the front\u201d is a significant shift in itself.<\/p>\n Vladimir Putin continues to call his invasion a \u201cspecial military operation\u201d \u2013 styling it as limited in scope and short-lived.<\/p>\n Many Russians were able to accept that \u2013 even support it \u2013 while it didn\u2019t affect them directly. But the mobilisation of military reservists has turned something distant and abstract into a very close and personal risk.<\/p>\n Regional politicians are falling over themselves in a Soviet-style race to overfulfill their quotas, calling up as many men as possible.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a shaping moment. For the majority of Russians, the war just started a couple of weeks ago,\u201d Anton Barbashin says.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the first months, the people dying were mostly from the peripheries and smaller centres. But mobilisation will eventually change that, as the coffins will come back to Moscow and St Petersburg.\u201d<\/p>\n The call-up has spawned reams of social media chatter by wives and mothers of the new recruits \u2013 those who did not rush for the borders when the mobilisation was announced.<\/p>\n Some of their posts \u2013 and videos by the men themselves \u2013 reveal grim conditions: poor food, old weapons and a lack of basic medical supplies. The women discuss sending sanitary towels to pad the men\u2019s boots and tampons to pack their wounds.<\/p>\n The Kursk regional governor has described conditions in several military units as \u201csimply awful\u201d, even down to a shortage of uniforms.<\/p>\n Kremlin<\/p>\n I am perplexed how the current defence ministry training unit can be in such a state: Ruined dining room; broken and rusty showers; a lack of beds and any beds they have are brokenRoman Starovoyt<\/strong> Such revelations blow holes in one of Vladimir Putin\u2019s proudest claims: that he has rebuilt the Russian military into a professional fighting force in which patriotic citizens will want to serve.<\/p>\n But for now, most recruits\u2019 wives seem focused on rallying behind their troops.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re at the stage where a significant part of Russian society still believes that \u2018Russia is a great power combating Nato in Ukraine\u2019 and sending tampons, socks and toothbrushes to the mobilised is a sign of patriotism,\u201d Anton Barbashin tweeted this week.<\/p>\n But the mobilisation mess, and Russia\u2019s military embarrassment, are pushing more prominent figures to speak out.<\/p>\n When liberals condemned the Ukraine invasion, they were arrested and many are still behind bars.<\/p>\n Even calling it a war is illegal.<\/p>\n In pro-Kremlin circles, that word is now commonplace, though, as is fierce criticism of Russia\u2019s military command.<\/p>\n MP Andrei Kartapolov was the latest this week to urge the defence ministry to \u201cstop lying\u201d about Russian difficulties, because \u201cour people are far from stupid\u201d.<\/p>\n Margarita Simonyan, editor of RT television channel, cited Stalin\u2019s practice of executing \u201ccowards\u201d and \u201cincompetent\u201d generals.<\/p>\n But there is no public questioning of the invasion itself, let alone of Vladimir Putin.<\/p>\n Margarita Simonyan refers to him as \u201cThe Boss\u201d and becomes glassy-eyed talking of the annexation of Ukrainian territory as a historic achievement.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is no anti-war political movement,\u201d Tatyana Stanovaya points out, especially in a politically repressive climate.<\/p>\n \u201cEven those against the mobilisation are opting to escape. Some try to leave the country, others are hiding. But we don\u2019t see attempts to create any political resistance.\u201d<\/p>\n This could change, she says, if Russia continues to lose and suck in ever more troops.<\/p>\n \u201cPutin has to deliver some victories.\u201d<\/p>\n Even the president hinted at problems this week, describing the situation in the annexed regions as \u201crestive\u201d.<\/p>\n But there is a giant push to blame Russia\u2019s setbacks on the \u201ccollective\u201d West which is backing Ukraine.<\/p>\n State media hosts are now describing the land-grab in Ukraine as something far grander, apparently buoying the nation up for a bigger fight.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s our war with total Satanism\u201d, no less, Vladimir Solovyov told viewers this week.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is not about Ukraine. The West\u2019s aim is clear. Regime change and dismembering Russia, so that Russia no longer exists,\u201d he bellowed.<\/p>\n That is the \u201ctruth\u201d that Vladimir Putin believes in and it is why this moment of objective weakness for Russia is also a moment of risk.<\/p>\n \u201cThis war is existential for Russia and so for Putin, victory has to be possible,\u201d Tatyana Stanovaya argues.<\/p>\n And \u201che has nuclear weapons\u201d, she says bluntly.<\/p>\n \u201cI think he hopes that at some level of nuclear escalation, the West will step away from Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n She\u2019s not the only one to note Mr Putin\u2019s more radical, near-messianic tone.<\/p>\n \u201cIt feels like this is what he actually believes: that this is the last stand of the Russian Empire, an all-out war with the West,\u201d says Anton Barbashin.<\/p>\n \u201cThat we\u2019re at the finish line, whether Russia makes it or not.\u201d<\/p>\n Of course, that\u2019s also the \u201ctruth\u201d that Vladimir Putin now needs the West to believe, more than ever.<\/p>\n![\"Vladimir](\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/2c6668c4-f91a-41fe-9ed4-017d9682f551.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Russian President<\/p>\nReluctant recruits<\/h2>\n
\u2018Simply awful\u2019 conditions<\/h2>\n
![\"Roman](\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/13c8eacb-c995-4789-bdf0-caac7e350f09.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Kursk governor<\/p>\nCensorship collapses<\/h2>\n
![\"Russians](\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/_126994901_kazakh.jpg\")
\u2018Holy\u2019 war with the West<\/h2>\n
![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/_126967603_ukraine_invasion_south_map-nc.png.webp.webp\")
<\/figure>\n