it's not only russia who are restricting info about the offensive, tho. lets b real.
βTrucks drove through the city honking, and they climbed on and left,β said Igor Levchenko, a retiree, describing the Russian Armyβs withdrawal after more than six months of occupation. βThey didnβt have a fighting spirit. They were afraid.β
The testimony of the townβs residents aligned with reports from other recently retaken villages in the Kharkiv region, where Ukraine has routed Russian forces, and towns that are still occupied in the south. The accounts shed a harsh light on apparent morale and communications breakdowns within Russian occupying forces that could have broad implications for the course of the war, should units elsewhere be afflicted with similar problems.
Some witnesses described the Russian troops as increasingly ill-disciplined, unpredictable, anxious and, in some cases, simply scared.
Am I being fatalistic for assuming that if this does do for Putin, the takeover is going to come from the people who think he's soft and weak and shouldn't be so slow to start lobbing nukes rather than from some peace-and-love faction who just want everyone to be friends again?
Underlining Russiaβs widening isolation on the world stage, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India told President Vladimir V. Putin on Friday that it is no time for war β even as the Russian president threatened to escalate the brutality of his campaign in Ukraine.
The televised critique by Mr. Modi at a regional summit in Uzbekistan came just a day after Mr. Putin acknowledged that Xi Jinping, Chinaβs leader, had βquestions and concernsβ about the war.
Taken together, the distancing from Mr. Putin by the heads of the worldβs two most populous countries β both of which have been pivotal to sustaining Russiaβs economy in the face of Western sanctions β punctured the Kremlinβs message that Russia was far from a global pariah.
βI know that todayβs era is not of war,β Mr. Modi told Mr. Putin at the beginning of their meeting, describing global challenges like the food and energy crises that were hitting developing countries especially hard. βToday we will get a chance to discuss how we can move forward on the path of peace.β
But Mr. Putinβs own next steps remain a mystery, and Western officials believe that he could still drastically escalate the intensity of Russiaβs assault if he is confronted with further defeats.