Lies about the status of the Ukraine war disseminated by private opportunists

In a recent essay on these pages I spoke about the ‘fog of war’ that frustrates our efforts at understanding who is doing what to whom and with what effect. As I said, strict military censorship prevents release to the general public of information about the extent of losses of personnel and destruction of physical assets from enemy strikes unless the losses, as for example, deaths and injuries to civilians, can be exploited to label the enemy as a ‘terrorist state’ or similar. However, an even bigger factor in the Information War is the dissemination of sensationalist lies by private individuals whether directed and paid for by the warring states or done purely to serve the ego and raise the audience of the propagandists. In the past 24 hours I was treated to more than a tolerable amount of this disinformation which I call out here for the consideration of the Community.

One astounding example was the use of the respectable and generally informative ‘Judging Freedom’ platform yesterday by one peer to passionately claim that Ukraine is about to be mauled on the battlefield, that the Russians are making their advances in Donbas with great strides, that Zelensky is about to be overthrown by his domestic opponents, that Putin held back on striking the Ukrainian ports two years ago because of the uproar that would have caused in the international community but is doing so now because the world sees the violence against Russian civilians being perpetrated by Ukraine, etc., etc. Russia has full control of the Ukrainian skies now that Zelensky has completely depleted his Patriot and other anti-aircraft systems. After capturing Slavyansk and Kramatorsk in the days ahead, Russia will swiftly capture all of the Donbas and will move on – across the Dnieper. In passing and with not a moment’s pause in the rapid-fire delivery of his Rant, he claimed that the Crimea is now well provisioned with gasolene, contrary to what people like me are saying and that Bloomberg is reporting record levels of production of refined petroleum in Russia, proving that the damage to refineries caused by Ukrainian strikes was of short duration and has been repaired already.

Meanwhile on other internet platforms, the widely watched military commentator Colonel Macgregor is already speaking of Ukraine in the past tense, as a disappeared state, and the sensationally popular Jeffrey Sachs speaks in the same terms about NATO and American global hegemony. To be kind, let us say that these assertions are premature by years? By decades? This brings to mind the quotation of Mark Twain: “the report of my death was an exaggeration.”

On the other side of the ledger, this morning’s edition of international news on the BBC carried a sensational dose of falsehoods about Ukrainian strength and Russian weakness delivered by one of their stock American academics whose professional reputation at home surely profits from such cameo appearances on the world-famous British broadcaster. The main point he sought to make was that the reported Ukrainian drone attack on a Black Sea beach resort in the Krasnodar region of southern Russia yesterday which killed seven, mostly children, sent 20 to hospital and injured 100 could not have been an intentional attack because in line with their values the Ukrainians have from the beginning only fought fair and square and targeted military targets, to which they have lately added energy (refineries) and logistics (Wildberries warehouses) infrastructure. No, said he, it is the Russians who have always sought to destroy Ukrainian civilian infrastructure and targeted residential neighborhoods. He explained that President Putin knows that he now has a losing hand in the war but resists calls for peace negotiations, is continuing the war, so as not to appear weak and risk being overthrown. It simply amazed me that this chap could keep a straight face while delivering such claptrap.

The truth of the situation as I can best make out is that the change in Russian strategy from war of attrition to all-out war and a quick knock-out blow, to the extent it has occurred, and I will question that proposition in a minute, came from rising pressure on Putin from Kremlin elites, from the broad Russian public to finally get it over with, finish the war by destroying Ukraine here and now with readily available state of the art missiles and drones.

The other day a friend in the U.S. asked me what the chattering classes in Russia are now saying about prosecution of the war. I told him that I have stopped watching the leading Russian state television talk shows because about six weeks ago Vladimir Solovyov caved in, stopped suggesting that the war is being mishandled and became a Putin worshipper on air, while the more balanced program The Great Game under Dmitri Simes has become much more cautious in making any critical remarks about the war management. Instead, as regards state television, I watch closely the war reporting on the Vesti news programs, especially the interviews they conduct with soldiers and officers in the SMO zone. What stands out there is the hard fighting going on daily, the defensive measures constantly being taken by the soldiers in the field to protect themselves from drone attacks which are going on constantly. You see how they stand far back from artillery when firing to be safe from enemy return fire on their artillery pieces. And you look at the faces of Russian troops. There are a good many 50 years plus soldiers in this war, on Russian as well as Ukrainian sides. This gives the lie to the notion that it is fresh, young patriots who are carrying the battle rather than oldsters drawn in by the eye-watering sign up payments, in the Russian case, or kidnapping from the streets by recruiters in the Ukrainian case.

Then I am making much more use of news ticker tape of dzen.ru (Yandex) and mail.ru. A day ago, I clicked on an article about the Ministry of Defense announcing that it had hit (поразили) several dry bulk Ukrainian ships in the port of Nikolaev and on the Black Sea. The reader Comments can be taken for chattering classes remarks. And what did I read? Several comments ask directly of the Ministry - what is the meaning of поразили - did you sink them or not? Just damaging ships does not count for anything! Another asks - why did you not do this earlier? These comments from people who can be easily identified by Russian security officials confirms my view that the management of the war is being contested openly in the general public. People have lost their fear to criticize sharply Team Putin.

The same dzen.ru ticker carries stories on how deputy prime minister Novak, former energy czar of Russia for more than a decade, has most recently said that the gasolene and diesel markets in Russia are under considerable stress and will take time to return to normal. We may assume that six months is the time period to repair damaged refineries, not six days or six weeks. And today’s ticker announces the agreement that the Crimean authorities and Sevastopol have made setting the price of 92 grade gasolene at 100 rubles. That is more than 50% above the pre-Ukrainian attack levels and suggests to me that it may not only be the way to sharply limit demand among the price-sensitive majority of the population but also may mean that some of the fuel is being imported from abroad, as from India, and that world prices are entering into the equation of domestic price formation.

As regards Russia having control of the airspace over Kiev and the Ukraine generally, that may well be true as regards missiles and drones, given the depleted condition of Patriot and other equipment in Ukraine, however it is absolutely false as regards war planes. No one seems to ask why Russia is not using its 1.5 ton glide bombs on Kiev instead of sending in very expensive long-range missiles that carry just a few hundred kilos of explosives. The simple answer is that they dare not because there is high risk that jets sent over Kiev will be shot down.

Now, for the question of whether Russia is about to deliver the knock-out blow: I have reported what is effectively destruction of the all-important port facilities of Odessa, Nikolaev and Izmail as well as the naval blockade at sea that entails destruction of all ships carrying goods to and from Ukraine. However, I have seen no reports on Russian destruction of the land-based logistics carrying Western munitions into Ukraine via Poland into the Lvov region of Western Ukraine. Not a word! That puts in doubt the possibility of a knock-out strike coming any time soon. And it raises the question of whether the Russian president is still being controlled in his war management by the oligarchs who profit from this war and by the security forces whose controls over the general population are augmented by wartime measures. The notion that Putin is avoiding a go-for-broke attack on Ukraine to spare the lives of his soldiers is pure nonsense. Vastly more soldiers will die in the long continuation of a war of attrition.

I insist that the same oligarchs in the Putin entourage who direct his hand on the war are the masterminds of the sensationalist pro-Putin propaganda being spread by the interviewee in the ‘Judging Freedom’ program I described above. I do not know if any money is changing hands, but it is beyond doubt that meetings with Sergei Lavrov, with Alexander Dugin, with Vladimir Solovyov and a host of other high visibility Russian public figures which are arranged for the gentleman in question and his friends are possible only by facilitation of the oligarchs and their minions. Nor do you get to the front lines in Donbas, as the aforementioned peer did several weeks ago, by just buying a railway ticket.

Accordingly, I say to the Community and to the general public, when clicking on the most popular Western major media like the BBC or on the most popular Alt Media websites, ‘let the Buyer beware.’

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2026