Weekend Update #97: Putin's Narrative is Supported, Zelensky's is Contradicted
A Textbook Case of How the Russians have Taken Over the MAGA Mind; The US Should Stop With the Expressions of Solidarity.
Hello All,
In case you missed it, Mykola and I just released our latest podcast, which went into the battlefield situation in the Donbas and Kursk in some detail. We also discuss the cabinet changes that President Zelensky is bringing to the Ukrainian government and end with a discussion of the present (rather sad) state of US policy towards Ukraine. Please do have a listen.
I will talk about the situation at the front, but because it is covered in the podcast, I thought I would also talk about how the situation is being discussed. In particular, this week is as good as any to discuss the success of Russian information warfare—depressingly so.
A captured Russian tank at Kursk.
Putin's Narrative is Supported, Zelensky’s is Contradicted
Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky both made public remarks this week about the land war and strategic choices at present. In particular they presented two very different analyses of the Ukrainian Kursk Offensive. They are worth looking at, because what Putin is saying is being widely spread throughout the western press and what Zelensky is saying is being widely derided. Its a little frightening—the western press was basically saying exactly what served Putin’s interest before he ever said anything and they had undermined Zelensky’s. Basically, Putin has captured much of the narrative and elements in the western press are making his arguments (unwittingly of course).
Putin actually has to explain a real problem—the fact that the Ukrainians not only invaded Russia as part of their Kursk Offensive and seized a significant chunk of territory (more territory than Russia has seized from Ukraine in the last 6 months) but also that the Russians have seemed powerless to even try and drive the Ukrainians back. And the longer they take to try, the more difficult it will be.
This is deeply troubling for Putin as a war development (or at least should be).
Putin’s explanation was basically that the Donbas was more important and Russia was having great success there. Here was what Putin said about the Donbas from a Reuters story.
Ukraine had weakened its defences elsewhere and allowed Russia to accelerate its push into the eastern Donbas area, he said, reiterating that Moscow's primary aim was to take full control of the Donbas.
"The enemy's goal was to make us nervous and worry and to transfer troops from one sector to another and to stop our offensive in key areas, primarily in the Donbas," Putin said. "Did it work? No."
When it came to Kursk, Putin tried to have it both ways. First, he said it was "the sacred duty of the armed forces" to retake all Russian territory, but then said that wasn’t going to happen now (which rather undermines the sacred claim). Moreover, he made an outright lie in saying that the Russians were starting to drive the Ukrainians back in Kursk (actually the Ukrainians advanced in a few places).
However, accuracy was not the point—it was to try and explain away the Russian failure at Kursk—and here is where it gets fascinating/sobering. Putin and his advisors, basically explain their failure by using identical words to the western media. Again from the same story.
Though the Kursk incursion was an embarrassment for Putin and the top military brass, Russian officials are now portraying it as one of Kyiv's biggest tactical mistakes of the war, saying it ties down thousands of troops for little real gain.
"By transferring rather large and well-trained units to these border areas with us, the enemy weakened itself in key areas, and our troops accelerated offensive operations," Putin said.
Zelensky, on the other hand, said that the Kursk Offensive achieved a great deal for Ukraine. First, it has turned the tables on Russia, blunted a possible Russian offensive towards Sumy and provided extra security for Ukraine in that region.
“He [Putin] was preparing to launch a new offensive against our city of Sumy, and we have turned the tables and are pushing the war into Russia through our counter-offensive,” Zelensky said.
This kind of comment follows on from earlier ones in which Zelensky has outlined benefits for Ukraine. These include the ability to set up and hold a buffer in Russia (many benefits) and drawing away Russian forces.
And indeed of Zelensky’s benefits have been achieved. They have provided more security for Sumy, they have set up a large, occupied area inside Russia. And they have forced the Russians to divert forces. Zelensky claims that up to 60,000 Russian troops have been sent—but even if its half that, that is 30,000 not available for the Donbas.
And yet, some in the media seem to have latched onto one thing—that so far no Russian troops have been specifically taken from the Donbas and send to Kursk. That is such a weird qualification. Russian casualties are so high, the key thing is to limit the new troops that can be sent to the Donbas—and if the Russians have had to send at least 30,000 troops to Kursk, that has been achieved.
So the western press basically has been feeding everyone the exact line that the Kremlin has wanted it to take over the last few weeks. There were the stories in the New York Times and the Financial Times that I highlighted last weekend.
At the same time, there have been regular attacks on Zelensky’s narrative, such as this strange analysis in The Economist. Its an insult to its readers to claim that the main benefit of Kursk is that it has humiliated the Russians (its much more) and in the same breath say that the Ukrainian line is “collapsing” in the Donbas. Actually its holding better.
In some ways the success of Russian information warfare is hardly a surprise (see the next story) but it is still depressing. Putin is making an argument partly to justify his own failure in Kursk, and the western press has given him ample ammunition to make it. The reality is this:
The Russians do not want the Ukrainians to occupy Russian territory—but they simply cant do anything about. Nor is it at all clear that they have the resources to take that land back at any time in the near future.
Russian advances in the Donbas were marginally faster (in an incredibly small area) at first but actually slowed noticeably in the Pokrovsk direction this week. Indeed the Russians seem hardly any closer to the city than they were a week ago.
Here is the most recent Deep State map about the situation near Pokrovsk.
And here is the map exactly a week ago.
As you can see, the advances towards Pokrovsk stopped almost completely, and now Russian forces are starting their incremental and costly advances towards the south (as I said, soon you will hear about the “strategically” important town of Kurakhove. Moreover, there are reports the Ukrainians are launching some counterattacks in the Donbas. Specifically, that the Ukrainians made some small advances near Niu York. And the Russians are actually, as Mykola says, having problems mustering t.heir reserves in the area to keep the campaign going. So they are losing high numbers of forces for very small gains and basically admitting that they cant take back their own territory. This is arguably a terrible strategic position to be in, but Putin at least knows that his arguments receive a great deal of credence in the reporting.
He cant “liberate” Kursk—this is a Russian failure, he is desperately spinning it as a success, and its not being questioned enough.
A Textbook Case of How the Russians have Taken Over the MAGA Mind.
On Wednesday a fascinating story broke, which highlighted how the Russians have been trying to manipulate US public opinion, in particular by influencing the Trump wing of the GOP (though spreading out from there) by funnelling a great deal of money to “unwitting” MAGA influencers. A Federal Indictment was unsealed, which described in detail how the Russians were funneling money to MAGA influencers to create violently anti-Ukraine and extremely positive pro-Russian content.
The way the system worked was as follows. RT (Russia Today) the state sponsored Russian media network basically paid many millions of dollars ($10 million has been mentioned) to an unnamed Tennessee based media company. That unnamed media company, as many stories say outright, bears a rather uncanny resemblance to Tenet Media. Tenet is the home of some of the most effective MAGA media influencers, including Tim Pool, Dave Rubin and Benny Johnson.
Here is where it gets even more interesting. All three of them claim that they had no idea that they were getting paid by the Russians through Tenet (if indeed Tenet was the company mentioned in the Federal indictment) and indeed they claimed that they were victims of a Russian plot.
Be that as it may—all of them (and all on Tenet) have been making extreme anti Ukraine comments for years. Tim Pool, maybe the most extreme, said that its women who support the war in Ukraine, because they want the death benefits they get when their family members are killed. Benny Johnson, on the other hand, basically repeats point for point the Russian narrative on the war. It was started by NATO, the Zelensky government is critical, the US should not help Ukraine, etc.
Trump even appeared on Tim Pool’s podcast, where he spent much of the time saying what a waste of money support for Ukraine was, and generally how Europe did not deserve US support. Here is a link to the transcript and below an excerpt.
And of course, all the usual suspects appeared on Tenet shows. And it was fascinating to see their reactions. David Sacks—always a great bellweather for how the most vociferous pro-Putinites are feeling, did not deny the charges, just through chaff in the air and said “what about Ukrainian influence?”.
Btw, Sacks has denied throughout that Russia at any time has committed a war crime in Ukraine.
In the end this has to go down as one of the most successful Russian influence operations in years. For only $10 million, they purchased one of the loudest and most influential media shaping groups in the MAGA-sphere. And through that, they were even able to get Trump on the show.
And you know what—no one is denying that it happened. They are only denying that they knew they were being paid by the Russians. This is certainly an interesting claim, as they basically were repeating Russian talking points—but I will let everyone make up their own minds on this.
Going forward, it will be interesting to see if these influencers continue with the same positions. If they do, its a sign of the practically complete takeover of the Russian narrative in the MAGA universe. If its continues to be the dominant narrative, even once it has been shown that the Russians have paid for it to be so—we can say that they have won. MAGA is theirs—and at a very low relative cost indeed.
I’ve said it many times, but once again, Putin has reaped far more benefits from the millions he has spent on influence operations than the billions he lavished on his overrated armed forces. $10 million represents the approximate cost of two T-90 tanks—which wont last very long on the modern battlefield.
This story just confirms, once again, how effective Russian information warfare has been.
The US Should Stop With the Expressions of Solidarity
The Russians continued their campaigns of bombing Ukrainian cities this week. They hit Lviv and Poltava, and in both cases created civilian casualties. Indeed these were some of the singly most destructive Russian attacks during the war.
The US government, as always, reacts with expressions of solidarity after these attacks. This was tweeted out after the Poltava attacks.
As others have said, its like a politician expressing “thoughts and prayers” after a US school shooting, but in the same breath saying that they are happy with the present looser gun laws. The US could do more to try and limit and hamper these raids, but it is choosing not to. As such, its better just to be quiet.
Have a good rest of the weekend everyone.
I'm gonna take another go at why the US press and the chattering classes are so uncritical of Putin. Right now, the US is going through a strongman infatuation stage. We are impressed with supreme confidence and the surface of confidence mesmerizes us. (BTW, one of the reasons for the surge of Harris/Walz is they are doing a very good job of projecting confidence.) We cannot place an equal focus on the weakness behind the confidence. In fact, Putin controls everything so that nobody from the outside can ever lay an eyeball on the weaknesses of the Russian military.
In contrast, democratic leaders look weak. They have to rally their nations, not command them. They have to argue for their positions, not hand them down as from heaven. Whenever Zelensky fires a top subordinate, be it his general in chief, foreign secretary, head of the Air Force, he looks weak. It's a confession that his policies haven't worked so far. Have you noticed that Putin will stay with the same personnel forever to signal that his policies are perfect?
Putin, Trump, and their ilk are lifelong practitioners of the maxim, “Fake it till you make it."
Information warfare is the only kind of warfare Russia has historically been competent at, starting at least with Potemkin villages, but probably a lot earlier. But it's really the fault of several generations of Western historians that the Russian/Soviet carefully constructed official narratives about almost singlehandedly defeating Napoleon and Hitler were allowed to take root in the West and create the impression of Russian military juggernaut that Russia now skillfully employs in its information warfare. So many people will point to Stalingrad and Kursk as places where Hitler was defeated, and very few realize that actually Germany lost more soldiers in its "easy victory" capturing Paris than in its "epochal defeat" at Kursk (well, to be fair, the difference in KIA+MIA count is only 12, and that's well within the margin of error).