In surreal split-screen, Putin claims success while his forces continue retreat
In a vain bid to celebrate his illegal annexation of Ukrainian territory, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday congratulated educators on Teachers’ Day, and promised to organize restful autumn holidays for schoolchildren in “restless and even dangerous” areas of Ukraine. But even as he spoke, Russian forces continued to retreat from the territories Putin just claimed as his own.
Highlighting the contradiction between Putin’s claim that Russia will remain in the four annexed Ukrainian regions “forever” and the situation on the ground, the president’s spokesman conceded Wednesday that “certain areas” in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions were under Kyiv’s control and still needed to be retaken.
As Moscow acknowledged its defenses in the south had been breached, Russian audiences saw tense exchanges on television, as top propagandists struggled to explain why the military was experiencing setback after setback.“We have lost 17 settlements in the Kherson region,” Alexander Sladkov, a war reporter with the Russia 1 state channel, said on air during one of the main talk shows, “60 Minutes.”
Roman Starovoit, the governor of the Kursk region in western Russia, which is one of the key staging grounds for the invasion, described the state of some military units he recently toured as “awful.”“I cannot understand how an active training unit of the Ministry of Defense can be in such a condition,” Starovoit said. “A ruined canteen, broken and rusty showers, lack of beds, and the existing ones are broken.
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