Putin lies about "imminent collapse" on frontline to force West and Ukraine to accept russia's demands - ISW
Russian state media are spreading false statements by russian dictator vladimir putin that the front line in Ukraine is "imminently collapsing," probably with the aim of forcing the West and Ukraine to capitulate to russia's demands, which russia cannot meet militarily.
This is stated in the analysis of the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
The ISW noted that a well-known military blogger with ties to the kremlin noted that russian state media, following putin's press conference on November 27, widely spread false claims that the front line in Ukraine was allegedly collapsing and that russian troops had already defeated Ukrainian troops and only had to "finish them off." He accused the russian media of fabricating some territorial successes and amplifying putin's exaggerated claims by using artificial intelligence (AI) to create fake videos of Ukrainian troops surrendering.
In addition, russian state media are trying to reinforce the kremlin's efforts to create the impression that russian troops will inevitably break the frontline in Ukraine and that Ukraine and the West must immediately give in to russia's demands before the situation for Ukraine worsens.
The same blogger confirmed that the front line is not collapsing and that russia is far from victorious, with russian troops retaining the initiative despite high losses of personnel and material resources. According to him, Ukrainian and russian troops are engaged in a positional war along the entire front line, and that Ukrainian troops are conducting a counteroffensive - all of which is consistent with all available open sources of information from the battlefield.
"ISW continues to assess that while the situation in some specific sectors of the frontline is serious, particularly in Pokrovsk and Hulyaipole directions, Putin’s and Russian state media’s assertions are exaggerated and do not correspond to the battlefield reality they claim to represent. It is notable that the Kremlin’s misrepresentation of the situation on the ground was so far from reality that a prominent pro-war Russian blogger felt compelled to issue his own corrective statement," the military analysts summarized.
As the Ukrainian News agency earlier reported, at the same press conference, putin, speaking about the aggression of the army of the aggressor state of russia in the Donetsk Region of Ukraine, got confused in geography and invented an advance in the non-existent city of Komsomolsk.
Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, amid a new massive russian strike on Ukraine, told how the kremlin used the visit of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban to moscow.