Allowing one man with such power to inhabit an imaginary bubble world

We’re three weeks in? The Russian invasion of Ukraine happened three weeks ago today or tomorrow. I’m still reading Ukraine Updates at Daily Kos, though instead of trying to keep them in chronological order (though they may end up that way) I’ll just highlight points I think are important. Laura Clawson reported that Marina Ovsyannikova of Russian state television slid into view behind a reporter holding a sign condemning the war. It said “Don’t believe the propaganda. They’re lying to you here.” She was, of course, fired and arrested. For a while her lawyer didn’t know where she was, though a later picture shows her with her lawyer. In a video she created before her moment of fame she said she is now ashamed for the years of promoting Putin’s propaganda. An update says she was fined. Maybe the regime would rather ignore her rather than make an example of her. Greg Dworkin, in a pundit roundup for Kos, included a cartoon of the same sign being held behind Tucker Carlson of Fox News. Mark Sumner of Kos reported that Putin, in the face of losing, might be showing flexibility. Maybe he doesn’t need to replace the government of Ukraine. Sumner wrote:

[Scholar and journalist Samuel] Ramani emphasizes that it doesn’t matter nearly as much to Putin if this invasion is perceived as a failure by the West, as it does that it be perceived as a victory in Russia. “Even if Putin fails militarily in Ukraine, he has many means at his disposal to create a rally around the flag effect and preserve his legacy at home. We should be very careful about assuming that this war will weaken his regime, it might have the opposite effect.”

Sumner also wrote that in contrast to the Russian military supply lines, the Kyiv supply line is doing just fine. Shelves are better stocked than in unoccupied parts of Ukraine and much better stocked than stores in parts of Russia. The prime ministers of Poland, Slovenia, and Czech Republic were able to go to Kyiv by train without problems. They’re expected to discuss proposals on rebuilding after the invasion ends. Sumner included a tweet from the Kyiv Independent:

Russia announces leaving the Council of Europe, hours before its expected expulsion. It means that Russian citizens will not be able to bring cases to the European Court of Human Rights, and the Russian government can re-introduce the death penalty.

Russians are known for flaunting their wealth through eating caviar. But very little of that comes from Russia. They may find out what life without it is like. In a third post Sumner noted that Russia has made little to no military progress. He also included a tweet from Visegrád 24 that’s going to sting:

Speaking to media after meeting with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Poland’s Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau stated there are discussions about Poland taking Russia’s seat in the G20. Founded in 1999, it consists of 19 of the world’s largest economies and the EU

And from Nexta TV:

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reports that 3 million people have left #Ukraine.

I’ve heard other reports say 3.5 million refugees. Kos of Kos did another overview. A surprise is there is no evidence of more military supplies coming from Russia. Exposed supply lines and there is no effort to resupply? There is only so much food they can pillage from locals. Two things getting a lot of discussion, but Kos disagrees. He says: Belarus won’t invade Ukraine. That dictator has told Putin no and his troops are even worse. There won’t be an amphibious assault on Odesa. The forces in ships in the Black Sea are far from enough to take the city. Those kinds of attacks need surprise and satellite images mean surprise is not possible. Kos labeled this high comedy: Oleg Matveychev of the Russian Parliament said his colleagues should think about demanding reparations for the cost of damage the sanctions are doing to Russia. He is also demanding a return of Alaska. Dartagnan of the Kos community discussed an article by Maxim Trudolyubov of Meduza, a Latvian news site that publishes in Russian and English. Dartagnan wrote the article...

makes a persuasive case that Putin is failing because he is irrevocably committed to his own fantasy-based worldview, one which crumbles and dissolves with the slightest degree of examination, and one which is failing now, in full view of the rest of the world.

Dartagnan added it is also quite similar to how the nasty guy treated COVID. Since that incompetence has been covered I’ll stick to what the Meduza article discusses. When Putin took over the government he purged government administrators, activists, politicians, and journalists who had an independent perspective. The removal usually included intimidation, force, or violence. They were replaced with people who would fabricate the facade of civic leadership. The government could only rubber-stamp what Putin wanted, and then propagandize it, and couldn’t perform any civic function. Dartagnan wrote:

Trudolyubov recognizes that the immense problem Russia now faces with its seemingly disastrous invasion of Ukraine is one borne of complacency, of those Russians with an independent voice not taking the complete dissolution of their public sphere seriously and allowing one man with such power to inhabit an imaginary bubble world of constant yes-men, unconstrained, allowing them to inhabit a fake world that now threatens not only to inflict immeasurable damage on Ukraine, but possibly the rest of the world (including Russia itself) as well.

And from Trudolyubov:

He not only believed in the reality he had bought, but he also made it the basis for action in the real world. Today, it is clear that his plan to conduct a short military operation in a “brotherly nation” was based on a fiction that he authored himself. Apparently, he expected that the use of force by a “real” state — that is, “his” state — would lead to the collapse of the “non-real” state of Ukraine.