The hosts of political talk shows and news programs were seriously affected by a string of embarrassing military defeats.
Furious objections about the weekend evacuation of Russian troops from a significant Ukrainian city came from an unexpected source: official media outlets that habitually applaud Moscow for everything it does.
The hosts of news and political talk shows are having severe issues as a result of a string of embarrassing military failures in recent weeks. used to portraying the Kremlin in a positive light despite Ukrainian progress.
Nationalists and official analysts had previously expressed their frustration with the military failures in their blogs, but the criticisms grew as a result of the Ukrainian counteroffensive in the Kharkov region of northwest Ukraine. Today’s turmoil can be seen on state television and in publications that get government funding.
The official press is taking a more critical stance, which coincides with both the widespread unease surrounding a partial mobilization of reserve forces and the government’s struggles to explain how Russia can take territory that the Ukrainians are retaking.
Problems
According to a report by the Institute for the Study of War in Washington, “the Russian defeats in Kharkiv (area) and Lyman, combined with the Kremlin’s troubles putting out a partial mobilization in an effective and fair manner, are drastically altering what happens in news spaces.”
After Lyman, a logistically significant eastern city for the Russians, was retaken by Ukraine on Sunday, Vladimir Putin’s followers in the media ignored the praise and more bluntly chastised the military, claiming that harder actions were required.
Vladimir Solovyov, one of the Kremlin’s most esteemed journalists and the host of a prime-time news program on the state-run Russia 1 channel, stated on Sunday that “what happened in Lyman on Saturday poses a big task for us.” Act, refocus, and then make difficult but essential decisions.
A day after Moscow celebrated the acquisition of four Ukrainian areas, including Donetsk, Ukrainian forces retook Lyman. However, Kiev controls 40% of that area, including Lyman.
within sight
The Ukrainian military can now advance further into areas Moscow claims as their own. Monday saw new developments on at least two fronts. encroaching on territory that Russia wished to include.
Chechnya, a province of Russia north of the Caucasus, was ruled by a leader who ascribed Lyman’s withdrawal to a general. The Kremlin’s steadfast supporter Ramzan Kadyrov declared on social media that this general’s incompetence was being “covered up by the Joint Chiefs of Staff” and demanded that “more drastic measures be taken.”
In a piece published by the well-known official tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda, the military was painted in a pretty unfavorable light. The report, which was released on Sunday, claimed that Lyman’s Russian soldiers had major staffing and supply shortages, poor coordination, and tactical mistakes.
“It’s business as usual,” declares an unnamed soldier who was a part of the soldiers who relocated from Lyman to Kreminna, another important strategic city that Ukrainian forces were pursuing. communication among the various units.
The withdrawal from Kharkov is discussed in posts by Russian war journalists on the Telegram app, and some express alarm about the potential that the Ukrainians may now be aiming for Kreminna.
“Now it appears that the Ukrainian military forces breached our fortifications in two days, traveling 30 kilometers in the direction of Lugansk. They forbid (the Russian army) from setting up camp close to Kreminna. Incredible,” Russia 1 correspondent Alexander Sladkov wrote on his 940,000-follower Telegram channel.
On Sunday, the state-run Russia 1 television channel’s news anchors and political programs referred to Lyman’s loss as “something hard” to process.
Following the Kremlin line, Russian forces accused NATO of supplying Ukraine with fighters and weaponry, which they claimed was the cause of the setbacks.
The occupation of Ukraine is not a game, and it has not been one for a long time, a soldier in the Donetsk region told a Russia 1 reporter. “It is obviously a deliberate offensive of the NATO army.”
The same position was taken by other journalists. On his broadcast on Sunday, Solovyov declared that Moscow “doesn’t face Ukraine, that’s over. Utilizing the immense force of its military industrial complex, we deal with the whole NATO alliance.
We “cannot not expect good news” from the front lines in the near future, he continued. “We need patience and a strategic will.”
(Source: AP)