Western delays and the lack of political will to timely provide Ukraine with effective air defense systems openly delight the enemy. The fact that a couple of days ago the Ukrainians did not shoot down a single one of the 28 ballistic missiles aimed at Kyiv gave Russia additional motivation to continue the shelling.
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Fortunately, the Russians cannot physically repeat such attacks often because they do not produce that many missiles, but they can do so regularly and take advantage of the fact that Ukraine lacks military-technical means to defend itself.
The Kremlin finds a great opportunity to squeeze as much optimism, encouragement, and any signs of strengthening the situation as possible from this basically strategically stuck situation.
They openly rejoice at Volodymyr Zelensky’s reproaches to the West, considering that the US refusal to deliver the requested number of “Patriot” missiles is unrealistic, as the 300 requested missiles, according to the Kremlin’s estimates, make up about a third of the US reserves. No one knows how many missiles the US actually has, but the Kremlin operates with numbers from “its sources” and openly hopes that after additional US strikes on Iran, those reserves will be even smaller.
Finally, they also comfort themselves with the idea that the real reason for refusing to deliver “Patriot” missiles is to pressure Kyiv and make it more compliant in negotiations.
All this must be known and assessed because the enemy’s propaganda weapons arise due to our inability or delay in making necessary decisions.
Everyone knows well that the likelihood of Russian provocations is increasing. The head of the US CIA reminded of this once again during a visit to Poland. It is already known to everyone, even non-experts, that the Russians are preparing a “false flag” operation against a NATO country using Ukrainian drones. The disclosure of this information itself has a certain deterrent effect. But this certainly does not mean that preparations are unnecessary. Preparation is essential, and institutions are precisely engaged in this.
In Lithuania, the experience of Ukrainians in fighting drones is practically being adopted, and this is exactly what was most needed today and, frankly, already yesterday.
The Ukrainians continue their defense and consistently, methodically prepare for offensive actions themselves.
While the West openly sighs and scares its residents with possible Russian provocations, Kremlin propaganda reports further determination for victory, about the restructuring of Russia’s defense structures, fundamental changes creating unified command of the rear, organizing technical supply, logistics, ammunition, and fuel supply systems. TV shows how V. Putin personally makes all these decisions. Only generals distinguished in battles and awarded Russian hero stars are appointed to leadership positions. This is meant to emphasize that victory and success in the war are in reliable hands.
Particularly emphasized is the creation of a new branch of the armed forces soon to be established – the Drone Forces. It is officially stated that drones already perform 80 percent of combat missions.
Generals’ funerals in Russia have become quite a popular event
It should also be reminded what was not reported on TV – that all those newly minted generals have been added to the blacklist of targets. Recently, generals’ funerals have become quite a popular event in Russia.
Anyway, recently, instead of increasing military support to Ukraine and pressure on Russia to complicate its already difficult life, we have given more than one opportunity to recover and rejoice. This is exactly what they do on their television. They rejoice at the slow process of sanction approvals. They rejoice again at the stalled negotiations on Ukraine’s accession to the European Union.
After the first negotiation cluster – “Foundations” – was officially opened in mid-June, and the sixth cluster, covering foreign, security, and trade policy, in mid-July, the second and third clusters, discussing internal market and competitiveness issues, remain blocked.
Russia reassures itself that someone will block this negotiation process anyway. Currently, Hungary is determined to do so.
And in general, the Russians feed all their propaganda from our extremely open and self-critical information sources, and we contribute to this with our inactivity and inefficiency. Instead of doing the job thoroughly, we unnecessarily keep giving them reasons to rejoice about something.
