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Vladimir Putin has long enjoyed a reputation as a master of information warfare. Over the past decade, his weaponization of social media and aggressive promotion of fake narratives have proven pivotal in a range of landmark achievements such as the 2014 seizure of Crimea and the 2016 election of Donald Trump.

This makes the current state of affairs all the more surprising. With Putins Ukraine invasion still less than two weeks old, it is already clear that the information war has been decisively lost.

Since Putins attack began on February 24, the world has rallied overwhelmingly in support of Ukraine. The vast majority of the international community have also vocally condemned Russian aggression. Indeed, the war is being widely touted as the most black-and-white issue of good versus evil in modern history.

Putins invasion has clearly made Russia toxic in ways that even his formidable disinformation machine has been unable to counter. It has led to unprecedented international sanctions and persuaded many of the worlds biggest companies to cut all ties with the country. Even formerly reliable partners like China appear increasingly unwilling to stand publicly with the Kremlin.

Meanwhile, false Russian narratives are no longer being given equal space in the international media or allowed to pass unchallenged. Putins attempts to justify his invasion have notably failed to gain significant traction. Instead, his increasingly unhinged rants about Ukrainian neo-Nazis and drug addicts have been widely ridiculed or simply dismissed.

Faced with the reality of a catastrophic defeat on the information front, Putin has retreated and is now embarking on a desperate scramble to protect his grip on domestic Russian audiences. During the first ten days of the war, Moscow has banned Facebook and Twitter, shut down most of the countrys remaining independent media outlets, and introduced draconian new laws promising long prison sentences for anyone who dares to question the Kremlins Orwellian party line regarding the war in Ukraine.

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After years of success, why is Putin now losing the information war so comprehensively?

One of the key differences between the current war and the Russian invasion of 2014 is the presence of large numbers of international correspondents in Ukraine. Thanks largely to the Biden Administrations policy of steadily releasing details of Putins invasion plans, the watching world knew well in advance that a major conflict may be about to break out. As a consequence, representatives of the international media began gathering in Ukraine in late 2021.

By early February, many of Kyivs top hotels were full of journalists and camera crews from all over the world. This influx has also seen reporters heading out to regional capitals like Kharkiv, Lviv, Mariupol and Odesa in large numbers.

The unprecedented international media presence in Ukraine has enabled hundreds of journalists to encounter the reality of the country for themselves. In contrast, previous Ukrainian news stories were typically covered by Moscow bureaus, with only a handful of stringers actually residing in Kyiv. This led to a Moscow-centric view of Ukrainian affairs, with bureau chiefs often giving far too much weight to Kremlin narratives while favoring the condescending conclusions of their Russian colleagues.

In contrast, the Western journalists who flocked to Ukraine in the months leading up to the outbreak of hostilities were largely free of Russian biases and soon began to redefine international coverage of the country. Crucially, they were not in any way beholden to the Kremlin, unlike Moscow correspondents who must secure Russian state accreditation if they wish to keep their jobs.

The Kremlin enjoys keeping its foreign correspondents on a relatively short leash. Moscow-based international journalists tend to receive very limited direct access to senior officials and are often forced to rely on spoon-fed information. Any correspondent who tells inconvenient truths runs the risk of expulsion, as has happened to Luke Harding of The Guardian and the BBCs Sarah Rainsford. Faced with the very real prospect of losing their livelihoods, many Moscow correspondents engage in self-censorship and quickly learn to avoid taboo subjects.

The media climate in Ukraine is strikingly different. While the Ukrainian media landscape remains dominated by oligarch interests and is prone to highly partisan reporting, it is light years away from the strict state censorship of the Kremlin-controlled Russian media. Instead, Ukraines many different media outlets compete with each other to create an imperfect but pluralistic media market.

Thanks to this remarkably free and robust information environment, international journalists in Ukraine have been able to engage with a wide range of local colleagues in order to form a well-rounded picture of the true situation in the country. This interaction has also helped to underline the common professional ethics and shared values that connect Ukrainians and their Western peers.

Dramatic recent improvements in international media coverage of Ukraine are only part of the reason behind Russias resounding information war defeat.

The most important single factor remains the fundamental weakness of Putins own narrative. His claim to be eradicating Nazism in a country with a Jewish president where far-right parties consistently poll in the low single digits is self-evidently absurd. To make matters worse, the war crimes committed by his troops in Ukraine have sickened the world.

While Putin has become a pariah, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has emerged as a global hero. Zelenskyys sensible and straightforward daily briefings and his memorable selfie videos have been a revelation, while iconic quotes such as I need ammunition, not a ride have already entered history. In contrast to Putins obvious lies, Zelenskyy comes across as sincere and candid. He does not isolate himself or force colleagues and members of the media to sit at the opposite end of ten-meter-long tables.

If Zelenskyy is the undoubted star of Ukraines information war effort, other Ukrainian officials have also performed excellently. Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has been a prominent and effective presence on social media, as has Minister for Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov.

Ukraines military has stepped up to the challenge with regular updates and clear, coherent messaging. They have been supported by Ukraines vast and vibrant civil society, which has served as an informal infowar army posting credible updates on military engagements and Russian atrocities along with inventive memes and morale-boosting patriotic messages.

Putin may yet achieve temporary military dominance over Ukraine through the use of overwhelming force, but it is far from clear how he could hope to convert this into a sustainable political settlement. The infowar is already lost, while the savagery of the Russian assault has poisoned bilateral relations for decades to come.

As an iron curtain of repression falls on Putins Russia, international media organizations should already be looking ahead to the future post-war period. If Ukraine emerges from the current conflict unconquered, regional correspondent bureaus should abandon the suffocating atmosphere of Moscow and relocate to Kyiv, where the climate of media freedoms and an absence of political pressure will allow them to cover the wider region with far greater truth and accuracy.

Anders slund is a Senior Fellow at the Stockholm Free World Forum.

The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.

The Eurasia Centers mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

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Image: Russian President Vladimir Putin is losing the information war against Ukraine. (Adrien Fillon / Hans Lucas via Reuters Connect)

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Why Vladimir Putin is losing the information war to Ukraine - Atlantic Council

Sometimes, in weighing what Russian officials are saying now, or what they may be saying next week, it helps to take a look at what they were saying just a few days ago:

They lied.

No one can possibly know for sure what's next. But "Sunday Morning" senior contributor Ted Koppel turned to four people whose life experience and accumulated expertise gives their opinions special weight.

Nina Khrushcheva, great-granddaughter of Nikita Khrushchev, came to study in America when Russia was known as the Soviet Union. She's now a professor of international affairs at the New School in New York, but still has close ties to the country where she was born.

"People are being fired for speaking against the war," she told Koppel. "My niece just got arrested in the center of Moscow. She was just walking. And because she's young, the police assumed that she must be protesting against the war. She would just get arrested."

Khrushcheva noted that Putin's poll numbers have gone up, from 60% to 71%.

"Now, can we trust those polls?" asked Koppel. "Or does the Kremlin "

"Oh yes. No, it's not the Kremlin. It's the Levada poll."

"But I suspect when the bodies come back, it'll be in the dark of night, and there won't be anybody there to photograph it?"

"Absolutely," Khrushcheva replied. "And they already, I mean, there are already information that they're burning those bodies. So, it's really quite Stalinesque time right now."

Keith Alexander was a four-star general when he ran the National Security Agency. Few Americans know more about cyber warfare, or Vladimir Putin, or how he may retaliate, than Alexander does: "He's not getting the movement out of the military in Ukraine. He's not making the progress he thought. I believe he's going to turn to cyber.

"I believe he's gonna hit Europe and the United States with that cyber. And I believe those attacks will go across the wide spectrum."

Koppel asked, "Can you put it in terms of what the average citizen is going to experience?"

"The average person is gonna look at what's happening to their bank, what's happening to their power company or their credit cards or the distribution of goods, whether it's oil and gas or supplies to their stores," Alexander said. "All of that could be impacted by cyber attacks."

Fiona Hill worked at the Trump White House in the National Security Council, where she served as senior director for Europe and Russia. Her memoir, "There Is Nothing For You Here," is just out.

Hill said, "In terms of thinking about modern war, it's not just about territorial conquest. It's what we call hybrid war, information war, influence operations, propaganda, cyber, ransomware attacks. It can be the use of criminal groups, for example."

"In a sense, Fiona, you're saying that we are already engaged in World War III?" Koppel asked.

"Exactly. Well, many average American families, particularly in the heartland, have had their sons and daughters in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Syria, and deployed overseas. We're gonna have to think that we're all part of this as well. We can't just think of, it's the families of other people in America who've been deployed overseas and who have been in harm's way. It may be all of us right now."

It's hard to think of anyone with more government experience that Leon Panetta: once Chairman of the House Budget Committee, White House Chief of Staff, Secretary of Defense, CIA director, and one of the earliest voices warning of the dangers of cyberwarfare. "The reality is that cyber is today a weapon of war. Without question, it can be used to paralyze another country."

Koppel asked, "When you hear Vladimir Putin warning about consequences 'the likes of which the world has never seen before,' everybody immediately assumes that he's talking about nuclear warfare. Could he be talking about cyber warfare?"

"I don't think there's any question he could be talking about cyber warfare," Panetta replied. "Cyber as a weapon means that you don't have to deploy your air force or boots on the ground. You can simply sit at a computer and deploy a very sophisticated virus that can take down our electric grid system, take down our financial systems, our government systems, our banking systems."

President Joe Biden has repeatedly emphasized that no U.S. troops will be sent to Ukraine; at the same time, the president has warned Putin against attacking any one of the 30 nations which are part of NATO. In his State of the Union speech, Mr. Biden said, "The United States and our Allies will defend every inch of territory that is NATO territory with the full force of our collective power every single inch."

Koppel asked, "What's being posited right now, and this is not theoretical, this could be next week or next month, that Vladimir Putin orders Russian troops into one of those Baltic States. Do we risk nuclear war to respond to that?"

"It's a dangerous moment; nobody can deny that," Panetta said. "We're dealing with somebody who might very well resort to some kind of nuclear weapon or worse. We have drawn a line, and I think if we fail to stand by that line, it would deeply undermine our credibility to ourselves and to the world."

Hill said, "[Putin] wants us to think and to believe, because he's been explicit about it, that the nuclear option is on the table. Because he has put his nuclear forces on high alert. And so, he wants us to know that he's thinking about his. Because one of the things about Vladimir Putin, if he has an instrument, no matter how cruel and unusual or terrifying that instrument may be, he wants us to think that he would use it.

"So, we have to address this issue seriously, not be intimidated ('cause that's exactly what he wants), not to be scared and to fall back."

Khrushcheva said, "My fear is that he's prepared to go as far as he needs to go. And that's why I hope it excludes NATO countries. But we really at this point cannot exclude that possibility."

"And that would mean that we are at the brink of nuclear war?" asked Koppel.

"It will mean that we are exactly at that World War III that we've been talking about for the last three months and so eagerly trying to avoid. That's also a sign that he's playing. And I hope he's only playing, but [he's] playing a very, very dangerous game."

Alexander said, "If he uses the nuclear weapons, I think that's the end of his regime. I think he understands that. I believe the alternative he will use is, he'll threaten with nuclear. He will use cyber. And I believe we're gonna push back in both those areas. And we have the ability to do the same thing against him. The difference will be that I believe ours will be more focused to go after him than the Russian people."

Koppel asked, "The Russian people are accustomed to enduring pain. The American people, quite frankly, are not. So, when it comes to those exchanges of cyber attacks, depriving us of what we need for our daily lives, that's what the Russians have been doing forever. We are accustomed to having what we want when we want it."

"Yeah. So, you bring out a great point," Alexander said. "And on the surface what you say makes sense. What happens when that's disturbed? I believe we'll grumble, but it's almost like what happened in World War II. It'll awaken the American people, is my belief, and they'll say, 'This has to stop.' I don't know where that will go. I have tremendous faith and confidence in the will of the American people to push back when the going gets tough."

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Story produced by Jon Carras. Editor: Ed Givnish.

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How far will Putin go and how far will America go to stop him? - CBS News

LVIV/KYIV, Ukraine, March 6 (Reuters) - Fighting stopped about 200,000 people from evacuating the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol for a second day in a row on Sunday, as Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed to press ahead with his invasion unless Kyiv surrendered.

Most people trapped in the port city are sleeping underground to escape more than six days of near-constant shelling by encircling Russian forces that has cut off food, water, power and heating supplies, according to the Ukrainian authorities. read more

In a phone call with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, Putin said he was ready for dialogue to end the fighting but that any attempt to draw out talks would fail, according to the Kremlin.

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The suspension of what Moscow describes as a special operation, "is only possible if Kyiv stops military operations and carries out well-known Russian demands," the Kremlin said in a readout of the Putin-Erdogan call.

The civilian death toll from hostilities across Ukraine since Moscow launched its invasion on Feb. 24 stood at 364, including more than 20 children, the United Nations said on Sunday, adding that hundreds more were injured. read more

The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights said most civilian casualties were caused by the use of "explosive weapons with a wide impact area, including shelling from heavy artillery and multi-launch rocket systems, and missile and air strikes."

Russia has launched about 600 missiles so far, according to a senior U.S. defense official.

The general staff of Ukraine's armed forces said the Russians were "beginning to accumulate resources for the storming of Kyiv".

Moscow has repeatedly denied attacking civilian areas.

In Irpin, a town some 25 km (16 miles) northwest of the capital Kyiv, men, women and children trying to escape heavy fighting in the area were forced to take cover when missiles struck nearby, according to Reuters witnesses.

Soldiers and fellow residents helped the elderly hurry to a bus filled with frightened people, some cowering as they waited to be driven to safety. read more

The invasion has drawn widespread condemnation around the world, sent more than 1.5 million Ukrainians fleeing from the country, and triggered sweeping Western sanctions against Russia aimed at crippling its economy.

The Biden administration said on Sunday it was exploring banning imports of Russian oil, despite concerns the move would drive prices even higher.

Oil prices have soared to their highest levels since 2008 and jumped 10% in early Asian trade on Monday. Russia provides 7% of global supply. read more

"War is madness, please stop," Pope Francis said in his weekly address to crowds in St Peter's Square, adding "rivers of blood and tears" were flowing in Ukraine's war. read more

Russian media said Putin also spoke by phone for almost two hours with French President Emmanuel Macron. Macron told Putin he was concerned about a possible amphibious attack on Ukraine's historic port city of Odessa, Macron's office said.

The United States does not believe such an attack is imminent, the senior U.S. defense official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

'NO TO WAR'

Anti-war protests took place around the world, including in Russia itself, where police detained more than 4,600 people, an independent protest monitoring group said.

The interior ministry said 3,500 demonstrators had been held, included 1,700 people in Moscow and 750 in St Petersburg. read more

Thousands of protesters chanted "No to war!" and "Shame on you!", according to videos posted on social media by opposition activists and bloggers. Reuters was unable to independently verify the footage and photographs.

A local resident reacts as a house is on fire after heavy shelling on the only escape route used by locals to leave the town of Irpin, while Russian troops advance toward the capital, 24km from Kyiv, Ukraine March 6, 2022. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

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Demonstrations also took place in Western capitals as well as in India and Kazakhstan, after jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny called for worldwide protests against the war.

In the besieged city of Mariupol, authorities had said on Sunday they would make a second attempt to evacuate some of the 400,000 residents. But the ceasefire plan collapsed, as it had on Saturday, with each side blaming the other.

"They're destroying us," Mariupol mayor Vadym Boychenko told Reuters in a video call, describing the city's plight before the latest evacuation effort failed. "They will not even give us an opportunity to count the wounded and the killed because the shelling does not stop." read more

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States has seen credible reports of deliberate attacks on civilians in Ukraine, adding that Washington was documenting them to support a potential war crimes investigation. read more

Moscow says it has no plans to occupy Ukraine.

The U.S. defense official estimated Russia has deployed about 95% of the combat forces it had staged outside Ukraine.

In the capital, Ukrainian soldiers bolstered defences by digging trenches, blocking roads and liaising with civil defence units as Russian forces bombarded areas nearby.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russian rockets had destroyed the civilian airport of the central-western region capital of Vinnytsia. Troops who committed atrocities against civilians would ultimately face punishment, he said.

"For you there will be no peaceful place on this earth, except for the grave," he said in a televised evening address.

Russian forces opened fire at a protest against their occupation of the southern Ukrainian city of Nova Kakhovka on Sunday, wounding five people, Ukrainian news agency Interfax Ukraine said, citing eyewitnesses. read more

PLEA FOR MORE WEAPONS

Kyiv renewed its appeal to the West to toughen sanctions and also requested more weapons, including Russian-made planes.

Speaking on a trip to neighbouring Moldova, Blinken said Washington was considering how it could backfill aircraft for Poland if Warsaw decided to supply its warplanes to Ukraine.

Putin says he wants a "demilitarised", "denazified" and neutral Ukraine, and on Saturday likened Western sanctions "to a declaration of war".

The West, which calls Putin's reasons for invading baseless, has expanded efforts to rearm Ukraine, sending in items from Stinger missiles to anti-tank weapons. But Washington and its NATO allies have resisted Ukraine's plea for a no-fly zone, saying it would escalate the conflict beyond Ukraine's borders.

Ukrainians continued to pour into Poland, Romania, Slovakia and elsewhere. The United Nations said over 1.5 million had fled in Europe's fastest growing refugee crisis since World War Two.

Western sanctions have pushed many companies to exit investments in Russia, while some Russian banks have been shut out of a global financial payment systems, driving down the rouble and forcing Moscow to jack up interest rates.

On Sunday, more companies cut ties with Russia: American Express Co (AXP.N), Netflix Inc. , accounting giants KPMG and PwC, and video sharing app TikTok.

But Chinese firms so far are staying put. read more

Ukraine's military said more than 11,000 Russian troops had been killed so far and 88 Russian aircraft shot down since the start of the invasion. Reuters could not corroborate the claim. Russia has not given regular updates on its death toll.

Tass news agency cited Russian defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov as saying virtually the entire Ukrainian air force had been destroyed. In the last 36 hours alone, he said, Ukraine had lost 11 combat aircraft and two helicopters. Reuters had no way of corroborating the claim.

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Reporting by Pavel Polityuk, Natalia Zinets, Aleksandar Vasovic in Ukraine, Simon Lewis in Moldova, Olzhas Auyezov in Almaty, Matthias Williams in Medyka, Guy Faulconbridge in London, John Irish in Paris, Francois Murphy in Vienna, David Ljunggren in Ottawa, Jarret Renshaw, Idrees Ali, Humeyra Pamuk and Daphne Psaledakis in Washington and other Reuters bureaus; Writing by Kim Coghill, Edmund Blair, William Maclean and Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by William Mallard, Frances Kerry, Daniel Wallis and Lincoln Feast.

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Fighting traps residents in Mariupol; Putin calls on Ukraine to surrender - Reuters

Vladimir Putin would have wanted to take Kyiv in just a couple of days but he seems to be increasingly cornered. Sky News has spoken to experts about how the Russian President may react next as the war in Ukraine enters day 11.

Air Marshal Philip Osborn, a former chief of defence intelligence and director at Universal Defence and Security Solutions, said: "Putin's in a corner over the conflict in Ukraine. But that brings with it all kinds of risks as his options are not nearly as clear as they were at the start.

"He really needs to maintain a narrative, which at the moment is to stop NATO expansionism and is all about the security of Russia.

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Russian commander 'now controls nuclear site' - latest Ukraine live updates

"Part of the implementation of the no-fly zone gives him that opportunity to underline that narrative at home, to make this about NATO and Russia, not about his miscalculation in Ukraine.

"He just can't hold that country. I think any nation who thinks it's going to hold a country of 40 million-plus people who just don't want you there regardless of the size is killing themselves.

He added Russia may have been "overconfident" about the invasion, but ultimately "underestimated the Ukrainians".

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Russian forces are 'not as agile as they thought'

Mr Osborn said: "He spent a lot of money bringing those armed forces up to scratch, but they don't seem to be doing what he wants. At the heart of military power is these people. It's have you got the right people with the right morale? The right training and the right skills.

"If you take a step back again, I think what we're seeing is a hugely overconfident Russian military engaging with the reality of a really high and well-equipped, highly motivated opponent.

"So I think we've seen an error of overconfidence as far as they're concerned. And they have underestimated the Ukrainians.

"That's led to tactical and operational level failures in terms of logistics, in terms of command and control. But what I think it's also underlined is that Russia is just not used to doing this type of stuff.

Key developments: Fresh attempt to evacuate Mariupol fails as both sides blame each other Ukrainians count the human cost of the invasion 'Putin must fail' - PM's six-point plan for resolving crisis ahead of talks with world leaders Visa and Mastercard announce suspension of operations in Russia China warns US not to 'add fuel to the flames' as Russia continues attack

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"And nations like the UK, the US and others train really hard to make to ensure you've got that capability, but Russia has not been doing that.

"I mean, what we're seeing is the Chechnya, the Syria playbook. He was trying to be fast. He was trying to be manipulative of public opinion. Puppet regime, perhaps in two or three days.

"That's clearly not worked. His forces are proving that they're not nearly as agile as they thought they were going to be.

"And therefore, what we're seeing, tragically, is Russia doing what Russia normally does, which is when it's in a hole it applies, violence, extreme violence, to break civilian morale."

Fiona Hill, former official at the US National Security Council specialising in Russian and European affairs, suggested Mr Putin may be reluctant to back down as he is worried about regime change.

Speaking on NBC's Meet the Press, she said: "One of the reasons he is engaging in appalling behaviour is because he is worried about his own position.

"If he fails and looks weak it looks disastrous at home. He looks at what the US has done in Libra, Iraq and Afghanistan and he doesn't want that to happen in Russia. He is extremely paranoid about that.

"So we have to be careful about how we talk about regime change in Russia otherwise he will double down further."

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Putin has to win 'to save face'

Kurt Volker, a former US ambassador, added the Russian president has given himself "no way out" over the invasion.

He said: "Sadly what he is very clear about now is he wants to kill Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, decapitate the government and control the entire country.

"In fact, I think he has given himself no way out. He launched his military operation on the thought that it might last two or three days and that would be fairly easy as they would take over Ukraine.

"However, this is obviously not true as Russian forces are bogged down in many places. They've suffered a lot of casualties, a lot of equipment losses. And now sanctions have kicked in that are truly significant against the Russian economy.

"So he has to win to save face, to save himself, to remain in power, because if he fails in Ukraine and the economy is tanking, I would not be surprised to see people in Russia start to question his leadership."

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Meanwhile, deputy prime minister Dominic Raab appeared on Sky News's Trevor Phillips on Sunday, where he said the Russian invasion was "not going according to plan", before rubbishing Russian reports that Ukraine had been developing a "dirty nuclear bomb".

He said: "Think it's about rhetoric and brinkmanship and Putin has got a track record. As long as there was arm of misinformation and propaganda, we saw that through the pandemic.

"And this is a distraction from what the real issues are at hand, which is that it's an illegal invasion and it is not going according to plan.

"That's why working with the UN, working with our NATO allies, working with our international partners around the world. China has got a job here. They've got to step up as well.

"This is a permanent member of the Security Council, and India as well. So we need to expand the diplomatic pressure, but let's not get distracted by the propaganda of Putin."

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace also warned the Kremlin not to underestimate the West.

He said in an interview with The Sunday Telegraph: "The thing to say to Putin is don't underestimate us, don't test us."

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Ukraine crisis: Russian President Vladimir Putin cornered over invasion 'miscalculation' - how will he react? - Sky News

It is said that in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. So it was last week when America ran out of ideas for helping the suffering souls in Ukraine.

It was then that Sen. Lindsey Graham broke the brain freeze by calling for the assassination of Vladimir Putin.

Is there a Brutus in Russia? Is there a more successful Colonel Stauffenberg in the Russian military? the South Carolina Republican tweeted, referring to Julius Caesars assassin and a German officer who tried to kill Hitler. The only way this ends is for somebody in Russia to take this guy out. You would be doing your country and the world a great service.

His thought, which he repeated several times, is almost certainly a common one around the world, but it was a no-no for a top government official to say it out loud, which is why the White House, the Kremlin and both Democrats and Republicans rebuked him. After all, encouraging assassinations is the sort of thing that can quickly get out of hand.

Yet the heated attention Graham attracted highlighted something else, too. Namely, that although the White House and NATO are thoroughly disgusted by the wanton slaughter of innocents and the destruction of a modern European nation by a savage invader, theyre also willing to let it happen.

The proof is that not a single idea advanced by the West, from bank sanctions to sending Ukraine some defense weapons to seizing the yachts of Russian oligarchs, has one chance in a thousand of stopping Putins war machine. The efforts may prolong the fighting but wont change the outcome.

Because both Europe and the United States are addicted to Russian oil, the sanctions steered clear of Mad Vlads energy business, a compromise that guts the ostensible aim of making it too painful for him to continue.

In effect, those calling for an end to the war are also financing its continuation.

Meanwhile, the one consistent Ukrainian request, made both by their Churchillian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, and stricken ordinary citizens interviewed on TV, is for a no-fly zone to neutralize Putins air superiority. So far, the answer is no because of fears the move would lead to unintended combat with Russia and result in World War III.

The rejection is understandable, especially after Putins threat to use nuclear weapons if anyone interferes in his slaughterhouse. He was even more specific Saturday, saying any country participating in a no-fly zone was participating in the war itself.

Get the latest updates in the Russia-Ukraine conflict with The Posts live coverage.

But the compelling logic of the White House and NATO in trying to avoid direct conflict with Russia underscores the predicament. If they wont do a no-fly zone, what will they do to stop the massacre?

Nothing is not an acceptable answer politically, so President Biden and his European counterparts keep piling on more sanctions and holding more meetings with each other to make it look as if theyre doing more than they actually are.

Think about that the next time authorities seize another oligarchs massive yacht. Do they really expect us to believe Putin will cancel the war because one of his cronies lost an expensive toy? More to the point, do the authorities believe it themselves?

Naturally, the left-wing media took the bait and ran with it. The New York Times cheered on Saturdays front page with a story headlined How the West Marshaled a Stunning Show of Unity Against Russia. It went on to declare that the West threw out the playbook it used for decades against the Kremlin and isolated Russia with unparalleled sanctions and penalties.

Politico played along, too, by asking whether Bidens Ukraine policy would give him a bounce in poll numbers.

All this happy talk strikes me as grossly premature and beside the point. If ever there was a binary issue, this is it.

Russia or Ukraine only one can win.

If Putin is stopped, Biden will deserve credit. But, and this seems far more likely, Putin will not stop until he controls the whole country and kills as many Ukrainians as he believes necessary, including civilians and children.

And unless the plucky but massively outgunned defenders pull off one of the great military upsets of all time, he will triumph because no other nation or group of nations with the ability to stop him had the will.

In that case, would the Times fault Biden and admit the stunning show of unity didnt matter? Ha!

One other point about the early praise: The finale will be televised, which makes it impossible to spin the results or even attempt to explain them away.

The heat that political leaders on both sides of the Atlantic are feeling now will be childs play compared to the public fury if Putin slaughters his way to total victory.

Try to imagine press secretary Jen Psaki or Biden himself explain why there was nothing more that could have been done as the world spent weeks witnessing women and children, along with Ukrainian combatants, shot down, blown up and ground into dust by Russian planes, tanks and rockets.

Neither will the pols be able to explain away the exodus-level of refugees, or why they didnt help until people managed to get themselves to Ukraines borders and cross into Poland, for example.

Answers also will be needed, including from Republicans, for the early dithering as Putin massed 200,000 troops and his arsenal on the border. Recall that the White House gave conflicting signals about whether the first round of sanctions it was drawing up were designed to be deterrents or not, and in the end they were insufficient anyway.

In a Saturday Zoom call with American lawmakers, Zelensky reportedly blasted the US for the early delay by saying, If you had started sanctions months ago, there would not have been war.

Par for the course with Biden, events moved faster than he did. It didnt help that he refused to let the growing crisis interrupt his frequent weekend trips home to Delaware. What does he do there?

Finally, the president entered this showdown with the disaster of Afghanistan hanging over him. He was determined to get all troops out and refused to heed the militarys warning that his plan was reckless and would result in a Taliban takeover.

He did it his way, and 13 service members lost their lives in a suicide blast that seriously wounded scores of others. The military equipment left behind made the Taliban one of the most lethal armies in the region and filled their coffers as they sold the excess on the black market. And, despite his promises, Biden left behind thousands of loyal allies.

Its not a coincidence that Putin made his move against Ukraine soon after the Afghanistan debacle. If he succeeds, Bidens record on the world stage will be 0-2, and there wont be any doubts about who lost Ukraine.

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Putin slithered into Ukraine as Biden dithered - New York Post

One of the wildest aspects of the first Great Information War is not just that you can follow Russias invasion of Ukraine in real time, minute by minute and step by step, but you can also join in.

Because in 2022, information is power. And one of the many huge unexpected geopolitical shifts of the last week is that this power has been returned to the people.

In Russia on Friday, Vladimir Putin, a man who is now scared of his own shadow, took the extraordinary step of attempting to outlaw information. He banned Facebook. He shut down Twitter. He passed a new law that declares journalism a criminal offence: any journalist found to have published fake news on the war in Ukraine now faces up to 15 years in prison.

It is, like so many things in the last week, incredible, unprecedented, horrifying but more importantly its also desperate and absurd. Because in 2022 you cant ban information. Its like trying to ban oxygen. Its the kind of move that one of his grey-faced Soviet predecessors might have made. Its as modern and up-to-date as a typewriter. Only a fool would make predictions right now, but heres one anyway: it proves that Putin, the founding father of whats come to be known as information war, just lost the information war.

Anything can and may happen. But having dominated the dark arts of disinformation for the last eight years, the Kremlins invincible mastery of the information space has been exposed as a sham, a fiction, another lie. Putin has put on the equivalent of a pair of bell-bottoms and is dad-dancing across the internet. Meanwhile Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy isnt just commanding his armed forces: hes commanding TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, Telegram. Hes simultaneously available across all social media platforms hybrid warfares first hybrid leader.

If this sounds like wishful thinking, it is. Russias war on journalism and journalists, like its war on Ukraine, is unspeakably chilling. But its also like watching Stalin take on the TikTok kids. Meanwhile, Zelenskiy has not just put out a call for foreign fighters anyone prepared to get on a train and pick up a gun hes also being assisted by a crack squad of armchair intelligence officers. Because one of the most remarkable aspects of the war so far is how anyone with a smartphone can play a role in the extraordinary Ukrainian resistance. Osint researchers open source intelligence gatherers are methodically scouring the internet for the latest photos and videos coming out of Ukraine and verifying and geolocating them in real time.

Every tank is being logged. Every truck and every troop movement is tracked, registered and added to open source maps and databases. This is a country of 44 million people recording every twitch their Russian invaders make. Its a firehose of real-time information that, with the help of this volunteer army, is being turned into real-time military strategy.

On Monday, I chaired a panel with Eliot Higgins, founder of the online investigative organisation Bellingcat, who has pioneered so many of these open source techniques and whose team has been responsible for many of its most astounding feats identifying Sergei Skripals poisoners, to name just one. What distinguishes this war, Higgins says, is that its the first time the Osint community has mobilised in real time.

It happened in Syria, he said. But it took time. And in that time lag, lies, disinformation, confusion dominated. This time around, he said, the disinformation just hasnt had the chance to take root a result not just of this great civilian information army but of US intelligence too. It took the unprecedented step of releasing its findings to the world ahead of the invasion. It informed us that there would be fake news about fake bombs, and when there were, we watched them being debunked in real time.

The world is terrible and dark, and so much of this is on us: its the corruption of our governments with their offshore structures and oligarch-friendly libel laws that is responsible for so much of this. That and the insanity of allowing Silicon Valley monopolies to police the platforms that provided Putin with his attack surface. All this has come back to bite Nato on its arse, and there are truly terrifying possibilities ahead. But not since 2010 and the Arab spring has it felt so acutely like technology could be the peoples friend.

Its also why we must, must, must call out the fundamental untruth that underpins this, the Kremlins war on truth. Russia did not invade Ukraine last week. It invaded Ukraine in 2014. And its not just at war with Ukraine. Its at war with us too. In February 2014 it launched a joint military assault on Ukraine and the west.

We didnt know it then. But we do now. Because the first stage in Putins invasion of Ukraine was an attack on information. He distorted reality, injecting the toxin of fake news a military strategy that he deployed against us at the exact same moment across the exact same platforms.

We knew this because its laid out in forensic and exhaustive detail in what may be one of the most misunderstood documents of modern times: the Mueller report. We just failed to understand what it meant.

But now we can and must understand, because the curtain has been lifted. Putin has been at war with us for the last eight years. A man we realised last week is the Wizard of Oz. Hes a man hiding behind a curtain, a veil of lies. A man hiding behind a curtain with a stash of nuclear warheads.

We finally have the light we need to see him for who he is, to understand the war he has been waging against us in plain sight, aided by his quisling western allies Fox News and all the chocolate soldiers of the war on woke. It just may be too late.

There hasnt been such a stark and universal moment of moral clarity for 82 years. This is lies versus truth. Its darkness versus light. Its Stalin versus the TikTok kids.

But Stalin has the nukes. He has the thermobaric weapons. He has the means and motivation to flatten not just Kyiv but the rest of us too. And what happens next is anybodys guess.

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Social media turn on Putin, the past master - The Guardian

If there was any doubt before, the answer is now clear. Vladimir Putin is showing that a world without American poweror, for that matter, Western poweris not a better world.

For the generation of Americans who came of age in the shadow of the September 11 attacks, the world America had made came with a question mark. Their formative experiences were the ones in which American power had been used for ill, in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the Middle East more broadly, and for much longer, the United States had built a security architecture around some of the worlds most repressive regimes. For those on the left, this was nothing new, and it was all too obvious. I spent my college years reading Noam Chomsky and other leftist critics of U.S. foreign policy, and they werent entirely wrong. On balance, the U.S. may have been a force for good, but in particular regions and at particular times, it had been anything but.

Blaming America first became all too easy. After September 11, U.S. power was as overwhelming as it was uncontested. That it was squandered on two endless wars made it convenient to focus on Americas sins, while underplaying Russias and Chinas growing ambitions.

Derek Thompson: How the crisis in Ukraine may end

For his part, Putin understood well that the balance of power was shifting. Knowing what he knew, the Russian president wasnt necessarily irrational in deciding to invade Ukraine. He had good reason to think that he could get away with it. After all, he had gotten away with quite a lot for nearly 15 years, ever since the Russian war against Georgia in 2008, when George W. Bush was still president. Then he annexed Crimea in 2014 and intervened brutally in Syria in 2015. Each time, in an understandable desire to avoid an escalatory spiral with Russia, the United States held back and tried not to do anything that might provoke Putin. Meanwhile, Europe became more and more dependent on Russian energy; Germany, for example, was importing 55 percent of its natural gas from Russia. Just three weeks ago, it was possible for Der Spiegel to declare that most Germans thought peace with Russia is the only thing that matters.

The narrative of a feckless and divided West solidified for years. We, as Americans, were feeling unsure of ourselves, so it was only reasonable that Putin would feel it too. In such a context, and after four years of Donald Trump and the domestic turmoil that he wrought, it was tempting to valorize restraint and limited engagements abroad. Worried about imperial overreach, most of the American left opposed direct U.S. military action against Bashar al-Assads regime in the early 2010s, even though it was Russian and Iranian intervention on behalf of Syrias dictator that bore the marks of a real imperial enterprise, not just an imagined one.

Russias unprovoked attack on a sovereign nation, in Europe no less, has put matters back in their proper framing. The question of whether the United States is a uniquely malevolent force in global politics has been resolved. In the span of a few days, skeptics of American power have gotten a taste of what a world where America grows weak and Russia grows strong looks like. Of course, there are still holdouts who insist on seeing the United States as the provocateur. In its only public statement on Ukraine, the Democratic Socialists of America condemned Russias invasion but also called for the U.S. to withdraw from NATO and to end the imperialist expansionism that set the stage for this conflict. This is an odd statement considering that Russia, rather than the United States, has been the worlds most unabashedly imperialist force for the past three decades. But many on the anti-imperialist left arent really anti-imperialist; they just have an instinctive aversion to American power.

Americas low opinion of its own capacity for goodand the resulting desire to retreat or disengagehasnt just been a preoccupation of the far left. The crisis of confidence has been pervasive, spreading to the halls of power and even President Barack Obama, whose memorable mantra was Dont do stupid shit. Instead of thinking about what we could do, or what we could do better, Obama was more interested in a self-limiting principle. For their part, European powerscontent to bask under their U.S. security umbrellacould afford to believe in fantasies of perpetual peace. Europes gentleness and lethargycoaxing Germany to commit even 2 percent of its GDP to defense seemed impossiblebecame something of a joke. One popular Twitter account, @ISEUConcerned, devoted itself to mocking the European Unions propensity to express concern, but do little else, whenever something bad happened.

Read: Bury the old world order

Suddenly, the EU has been aroused from its slumber, and the parody account was rendered temporarily speechless. This is no longer tepid concern, but righteous fury. Member states announced that they would send anti-tank weapons to Ukraine. Germany, for the first time, said that it would ramp up its military budget to 100 billion euros. On the economic front, the EU announced some of the toughest sanctions in history. My podcast co-host, Damir Marusic, an Atlantic Council senior fellow, likened it to a holy war, European-style.

Sometimes, unusual and extreme events mark the separation between old and new ways of thinking and being. This week, the Berlin-based journalist Elizabeth Zerofsky remarked that the current moment reminded her of the memoir The World of Yesterday, written by the Austrian novelist Stefan Zweig as World War II loomed. In it, he recalls the twilight of the Austro-Hungarian Empire with an almost naive fondness. On the first day of the Ukraine invasion, I happened to be speaking to a group of college students who had no memory of September 11. I told them that they may be living in history. Those students, like all of us, are bearing witness to one of those rare events that recast how individuals and nations alike view the world they inhabit.

The coming weeks, months, and years are likely to be as fascinating as they are terrifying. In a sense, we knew that a great confrontation was coming, even if we hadnt quite envisioned its precise contours. At the start of his presidency, Joe Biden declared that the battle between democracies and autocracies would be the defining struggle of our time. This was grandiose rhetoric, but was it more than that? What does it actually mean to fight such a battle?

In any number of ways, Russias aggression has underscored why Biden was right and why authoritariansand the authoritarian idea itselfare such a threat to peace and stability. Russia invaded Ukraine, a democracy, because of the recklessness and domination of one man, Vladimir Putin. The countries that have rallied most enthusiastically behind Ukraine have almost uniformly been democracies, chief among them the United States. America is lousy, disappointing, and maddeningly hypocritical in its conduct abroad, but the notion of any moral equivalence between the United States and Putins Russia has been rendered laughable. And if there is such a thing as a better world, then anti-imperialists may find themselves in the odd position of hoping and praying for the health and longevity of not just the West but of Western power.

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Putin Proves There Are Worse Things Than American Power - The Atlantic

Bodyguards with bulletproof briefcases and high-powered pistols, look-alike stand-ins and food tasters are just some of the ways Russian President Vladimir reportedly protects himself from would-be assassins and coup plotters.

The potential threats against Putin, 69, were thrust into the spotlight Thursday when US Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) called on somebody in Russia to take this guy out for ordering the deadly invasion of Ukraine.

But Putin, a former KGB agent whos been in power since rising to power in 2000, is apparently obsessed with both his security and his health protecting himself from assassins and avoiding COVID-19 at all costs, as demonstrated by the lengths to which hes gone to avoid catching the virus.

Recent photos show him meeting with world leaders and even his own advisers at opposite ends of extremely long tables to maintain at least 20 feet of distance between them, and he donned a hazmat suit complete with a full face respirator before visiting a Moscow hospital treating coronavirus patients in April 2020.

Putins bodyguards who call themselves his Musketeers comprise a special unit within Russias Federal Protective Service, or FSO, which traces its roots to 1881, when Czar Alexander III surrounded himself with guards following the assassination of his father by a bomb-throwing revolutionary, according to The Economist.

Much of whats been revealed about the elite Presidential Security Service comes from the Beyond Russia website, which is run by TV-Novosti, a state-funded operation that also oversees the embattled RT propaganda network.

The website says Putins bodyguards are hand-picked for qualities that include operational psychology, physical stamina and the ability to withstand cold and not sweat in heat.

Theyre reportedly outfitted with special briefcases that serve as shields to protect Putin and carry Russian-made, 9 mm SR-1 Vektor pistols loaded with armor-piercing bullets.

Before Putin travels, advance teams scout out his destination months ahead of time, checking to see how the public will likely respond and even if the area could be affected by bad weather or natural disasters.

Whereverhes going to stay gets inspected, jamming devices are installed to prevent remote detonation of bombs and technicians conduct electronic surveillance of cellphones and other devices in the area.

On the road, Putin rides amid a convoy of heavily armored vans that carry military special operators armed with AK-47s, anti-tank grenade launchers and portable anti-aircraft missiles.

And when he steps out in public, four rings of security surround him, starting with his personal bodyguards, others hidden amid the crowd, still more ringing the perimeterand snipers perched on the surrounding rooftops.

In 2018, one bodyguard was recorded intervening when famed mixed martial artist Conor McGregor threw his arm around Putins shoulders as they posed for cameras at the World Cup soccer championship in Moscow.

A video posted on YouTube shows the man briefly stepping into view to fix McGregor with a steely gaze and gesture him to stop, prompting the fighter to quickly remove his arm and sheepishly fold his hands together. The FSO also reportedly has wide-ranging authority to carry out its operations and investigations, including by conducting electronic eavesdropping, opening mail, searching homes, seizing vehicles and detaining and interrogating suspects.

Get the latest updates in the Russia-Ukraine conflict with The Posts live coverage.

Putins bodyguards reportedly have to be replaced upon turning 35, but they can be rewarded with powerful new posts as regional governors, federal ministers, special services commanders and presidential administrators.

A 2018 expose by Russias independent Novaya Gazeta newspaper and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project also revealed how a giant Soviet-era poultry plant outside Moscow was appropriated and its valuable land was divvied up among high-ranking officers in the FSO and the Presidential Security Service.

Among those who benefitted from the scam were three former Putin bodyguards who were recorded flanking him during an official trip to Helsinki, Finland, in 1999, according to the report.

In 2016, Russia Beyond noted longstanding rumors that the FSO sometimes employed a presidential body double to ensure the safety of Putin, or body No. 1.

Putin later acknowledged that he was offered a stand-in when he made several trips to Chechnya when Russia was battling separatists there during the early 2000s, but he claimed during a 2020 interview to have declined these body doubles every time the subject came up.

Putin also has someone sample every meal hes served to ensure hes not being poisoned, according to the founder of the Club des Chefs des Chefs, a culinary organization whose members cook for heads of state and monarchs around the world.

Tasters still exist but only in the Kremlin, where a doctor checks every dish with the chef, Gilles Bragard told The Telegraph in 2012.

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Here's how Putin protects himself from assassins and coup plots - New York Post

Andrew Rawnsley is right to note that Vladimir Putins invasion of Ukraine signals a global contest for the soul of our planet (Liberal democracies must defend their values and show Putin that the west isnt weak, Comment).

The current situation can be traced back to western triumphalism after the collapse of the Soviet Union, which may well have fed Putins drive to address perceived humiliation. The hubris of the west in turn fed strategic inertia and a failure to follow words with action, as in Barack Obamas refusal to act when Bashar al-Assad crossed his red lines in Syria, when Joe Biden abjectly abandoned Afghanistan, and the UK prostituted itself by accepting foreign investment without any checks on where it came from, turning London into the worlds money-laundering capital. The wealth of a small global elite now holds sway over the planet, as noted by Nick Cohen.

This in no way justifies Putins warmongering. However, I fear things will continue to get worse until and unless a new political leadership emerges that is willing and able to rebuild our economies on a more equitable and environmentally sustainable basis and make the options both electorally attractive and administratively feasible.Geoffrey PayneLondon W5

Would that our leaders might implement the punitive sanctions against Putin that Simon Tisdall suggests (Timidity, greed and sloth: why the west always loses to Putin, Focus). There are other actions that could be taken through the UN that might ease an earlier, still unresolved, refugee crisis for Europe for which Russia bears much responsibility.

Putins preoccupation with Ukraine and the near-worldwide abhorrence of his actions provide the opportunity to make a major effort to reconvene Syrian peace talks without the previous stumbling block of Putins insistence that al-Assad remains in office. A peace agreement should be followed by UN-supervised elections and both Assad and Putin facing charges at the International Criminal Court.Professor Keith BarnhamFrome, Somerset

The war in Ukraine is devastating and terrifying and Boris Johnson should not be allowed to use it for his career purposes (From partygate to Putins war: PM rides on a rare wave of unity, News). He may think of himself as a second Churchill, but it is up to the media to prevent this mistaken image from taking hold. It should be possible to find the newspaper contributions Johnson published in 2014, when Russia occupied Crimea.

Was he writing about how to preserve peace and protect democracy in Europe? Or was he already plotting to destabilise the European Union? And ever since 2014, he has spent a lot of his (and everybody elses) energy on creating disunity in the west, instead of the unity he is now suddenly praising. Johnson is no Churchill. He is still the lying opportunist he always has been.Aileen RambowLondon N10

Your leader articles cynicism concerning Johnsons promises to do anything about, let alone clean up, Russian dirty money (Putins Russia is a pariah state. A united front must complete its isolation, Editorial) is understandable. Inured by Johnsons lying, Putins has been less surprising. Its noticeable, though, that its taken some Ukrainians just a few days of the war before publicly questioning Johnsons bona fides after he made his pledges, compared to the months or even years it has taken some in his own country to do the same.David MurrayWallington, Surrey

Our use of Russian oil and gas is helping to fund Putins war machine. This affects the UK less than some European countries, but surely we and the EU can cooperate to cut back on Russian oil/gas imports, and accept some overnight power cuts as a result. It is our inconvenience against Ukrainian civilians being killed by the Russian military.Peter HenshawSherborne, Dorset

Will Hutton describes the UK university system as a demand-led market (Kicking universities is no way to solve the divide between the academic and the rest, Comment).

However, it is a perverse market. In a self-correcting functioning market, when the product yields diminishing satisfaction, demand falls, entrepreneurs reduce output and resources are transferred to more productive uses. However, education markets dont work like this. Instead, when consumers (ie students) perceive that the product (ie access to sought-after job opportunities) no longer provides this benefit, demand does not diminish; instead, many students perceive the need for more, not less, education because otherwise they may face long-term unemployment.

A-levels were once necessary for entry to many professions in the UK, then first degrees became essential, and recently those with masters and doctorates far outnumber the job opportunities they aspire to.

Proposals for lowering the level of income at which student loans kick in, and extending repayments from 30 to 40 years, will reduce the amount of debt falling on taxpayers but this delays the need to rethink the future of university funding.Lawrence LockhartBath, Somerset

Benjamin Zephaniahs experiences are an inspiration to us all (New rules will stop the likes of me going to uni Zephaniah, News). The government must be stopped in its proposals to bar any student who fails GCSE English or maths from securing higher educational loans.

The fact a person has dyslexia shouldnt inhibit their progress in life. My inabilities at school resulted in years of embarrassment when asked to stand up and read out a passage from our English books. It also led to years of questioning my ability to progress in life.

It wasnt until I entered university as a mature student that one of my lecturers, himself dyslexic, identified that I had a learning disability. Its critical that the government develops new educational systems that benefit students with dyslexia and enhances their chances of reaching their goal of entering higher education.Stuart CarruthersLewes, East Sussex

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Letters: the roots of Vladimir Putins invasion ambitions - The Guardian

While Russian President Vladimir Putin is raining bombs on Ukrainian cities, his top propagandists are most concerned about getting bombarded with text messages and losing the information war to Ukraine.

On Thursdays episode of The Evening With Vladimir Soloviev, state TV propagandist Vladimir Soloviev complained that he and editor-in-chief of RT Margarita Simonyan are being terrorized by unknown individuals, receiving endless calls and texts about Russias military activities in Ukraine. He griped: Margarita and I can show our telephones to demonstrate that were getting a thousand calls and texts per hour.

Several days earlier, two other state TV propagandists, Olga Skabeeva and her husband Evgeny Popov, also reported a barrage of calls. Skabeeva, who hosts the state TV show 60 Minutes, angrily yelled that Ukrainians or their supporters have been endlessly calling everybody, everybody, all citizens of Russia, including me and Evgeny! Later in the show, she loudly interrupted a panelist to grumble about being subjected to a mass attack that started at 2 a.m... we started getting calls from the territory of Ukraine, two to three minutes apart, Ukrainian and Polish phone numbers calling nonstop... And then, text messages with threats to kill me and my family, and photosendless photosof corpses, which they say are the corpses of Russian soldiers!

The fact that the Russian military is experiencing heavy losses during the invasion of Ukraine seemed to be of little consequence to Skabeeva, who for years publicly agitated for war against Ukraine. She was, however, overtly angered by the messages, which serve as a reminder of the wars consequences.

Meanwhile in Moscow, the Russian government has adopted new legislation to prevent the dissemination of fake information about the invasion, with state media describing worldwide condemnation of the Kremlins deeds as informational carpet bombing. Across state television, Putins attempted blitzkrieg against Kyiv is being entirely overshadowed by the Western response to the assault on Ukraine, including U.S. sanctions, which Russian lawmaker Alexey Nechayev described as the blitzkrieg of the West against the Russian economy.

Popular state TV pundit Karen Shakhnazarov conceded on Friday that, It seems to me that were losing the information war. Our info-operation wasnt thoroughly prepared, unlike the Ukrainian sideand whoever is standing behind them. He, too, complained about getting trolled with strange phone calls. By the way, I got a call from Zelensky. Well, at least it was his voice on my phone. Either a recording or somebody impersonating him. Other people are getting those too, he said. Theyre well-prepared, with hundreds of thousands or millions of templates for things that are being disseminated.

Appearing on Solovievs show on Thursday, Alexander Khinshtein, head of the State Dumas information committee, said, This is a blatant, overt information war that is being waged for hearts and minds, to make people not only abroad, but within Russia to believe in these horrors and to experience fear, panic and hatred, to start a psychological war over here. He went on to describe unprecedented cyber attacks against Russias infrastructure and its government websites, claiming that they are two to three times more impactful than any prior cyberattacks Russia experienced.

Our government seems to be impotent. Were never prepared for anything.

Khinshtein claimed that the cyberattacks targeted all government agencies, all federal and regional utility services, energy and transportation systems, as well as objects of critical information infrastructure, including all of Russias state-controlled media. He blamed unknown attackers for sending out text messages, push notifications and snail mail that is being delivered to physical addresses in Russia, describing the contents simply as horrors.

Khinshtein concluded that the aim of the ongoing offensive is to cause the infrastructure to crash and the public to panic. Soloviev chimed in to clarify: We certainly understand that Ukrainians are not the ones doing that and our doctrine clearly describes cyberattacks as casus belli. So what are we waiting for? Unsatisfied with just one war in progress, Soloviev is agitating for anotherbut in all fairness, he believes that Russia is already at war with the Western world. He exclaimed: Our war is against the Westa big, serious war... Ukraine is a proxy through which the West is fighting against us.

The impact of the war on Russias economic crisis is already starting to manifest, as the government and major supermarket chains have agreed to restrict the amount of food staples sold to each customer in an effort to limit hoarding.

Alexander Babakov, member of the State Duma, said: The current situation can be factually characterized as war. An economical war, a battle for survival... Look at what the West is doing. Its destroying all logistics, its destroying us economically... Lets not be shy about it, we intend to win this war.

Appearing on Solovievs show on Wednesday, political scientist Sergey Mikheyev predicted: The situation here, internally, may deteriorate once the people start to feel the impact of sanctions... even those people who agree with us right now... It wont be enough just to tell them that this is our life now, because we had to undertake the denazification of Ukraine... We should have been preparing for this moment ten, fifteen years earlier, with a different economy, but even now, we need to communicate to people about this... We cant just say that this is our new reality and we must live in it... We can tell them how hard this will hit Americawhich is also necessarybut that alone wont suffice.

Mikheyev added: With all respect to our president, he always said that rising prosperity was the most important thing... Go ahead and explain, if the main thing in life is prosperity, then explain how were supposed to survive these sanctions.

Without a hint of self-awareness, Soloviev boasted that he had no real concerns about the economic impact of Russias war against Ukrainedespite recently losing access to his two Italian villas, estimated to be worth a combined $8 million. The host bragged: Myself, Im well off. He cackled: I bought so much stuff in previous years that I dont have to go to any stores for years to come.

Even the most ardent Putin supporters sounded irritated with his governmentnot for waging war against Russias innocent neighbor, but for being unprepared to face the economic fallout. Andrey Sidorov, deputy dean of world politics at Moscow State University, noted: Our government seems to be impotent. Were never prepared for anything... How will people fix their cars without automobile parts? Evoking the story of Cinderella, Soloviev bitterly pointed out, And our phones are about to turn into pumpkins.

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Putin's Henchmen Rage About Getting Trolled With 'Endless Photos' of Dead Russian Troops - The Daily Beast