The senseless explanations of the Russian Ministry of Defense that the flight of their units from the Kharkiv region is a planned “regrouping” designed to strengthen the Donetsk direction are just as false as the “goodwill gesture” during the retreat from Kyiv at the end of March. The Russian Defense Ministry is incapable of admitting defeat and is hurting itself even more, according to analysts at the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW), as they wrote in their conclusions for September 11.

“The Russian Ministry of Defense falsely claimed that Russian troops committed a series of demonstrative actions and used artillery and aircraft to ensure the safety of the withdrawal of Russian troops. These Russian statements have nothing to do with the situation on the ground, the ISW concludes.. “The inability of the Russian Defense Ministry to recognize Russia’s miscalculations in the Kharkiv region and effectively create information conditions is destroying the Russian information space.”.

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Experts noted that Kremlin propagandists were so unprepared for the collapse of the Russian army on the battlefield that they “offered a wide range of confusing explanations” of the situation, just not to recognize Ukrainian successes. They either said that "

“Kremlin propagandists turned out to be extremely disorganized in their narratives: some confirmed the liberation of some cities, while others denied such reports. The invited experts also failed to confirm the hosts' narratives that Ukrainian successes do not matter for the Donbass axis..

Such programs can reveal the real course of the Russian “special military operation” to the general Russian public, entrusted to the state media and the Russian Defense Ministry to receive updates,” ISW experts say..

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Recall that an American journalist of Russian origin Anton Troyanovsky wrote in an article in The New York Times that the defeat of the Russian army in the Kharkiv region was a personal blow for Putin and could weaken the reputation of the Russian dictator at home as a quick-witted geopolitical strategist..