You all, on the other hand, parrot CNN garbage which they admitted to be lies.
CNN admitted they are lying. Do you even realize what it means?
CNN lies to to create impression that Putin is losing and Ze is winning.
They think that Putin is watching them. Ze is watching for sure (reminds you anyone ?), but Putin is unlikely.
Putin isn't losing. The trouble is, he isn't winning either. This quickly turned into a WWI stalemate. The fact that the tense for the conversation remains present and not past, implies that after over two months, Russian advancements in Ukraine have been insufficient to justify stopping the incursion. And the loss of the ship at sea has made things harder. Russia has been shelling the heck out of Ukraine. And yet, the gains for Russia and its army have been pretty small.
When Putin talks, it isn't a guy who is clearly on the verge of victory. Instead, he warns Finland and Sweden from joining NATO, about the West supporting Ukraine. You complain about CNN lying. But if Putin was winning, if he had won, this would be over. He wouldn't be whining about these things. He'd be annexing eastern Ukraine into Russia. But there isn't much territory to annex. Certainly not enough to justify the cost of this invasion to the oligarchs and the nation.
I respectfully disagree. Putin is indeed losing. He must conquer or he loses. From ISW today’s analysis:
“Ukrainian defenses have largely stalled Russian advances in Eastern Ukraine. Russian troops conducted a number of unsuccessful attacks in Eastern Ukraine on May 4 and were unable to make any confirmed advances. Russian forces attacking south of Izyum appear increasingly unlikely to successfully encircle Ukrainian forces in the Rubizhne area. Ukrainian forces have so far prevented Russian forces from merging their offensives to the southeast of Izyum and the west of Lyman, Slovyansk, and Kramatorsk, as Russian forces likely intended.”
They haven’t been able to do shit. A stalemate is a loss. They’re being thrown back around Kharkiv as well today. Even around the Azov steel plant in Mariupol, they’re getting thrown back.
Putin May have to announce full scale mobilization on May 9th. But if he does he’ll be telegraphing that he’s losing. Which he is. Watch the Russian people avoid service. In the late 80’s, something like 90% of conscripts just didn’t show up. we could see massive but passive resistance to the war. That’s Russia’s fundamental dilemma. It’s troops aren’t willing to fight and die in Ukraine. Ukrainians are. And it will only get worse as the war drags on interminably.