Date: 2024-10-19 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00025115
THE UKRAINE WAR
HOW BAD IS THE RUSSIAN SITUATION?
Putin concedes that Ukraine is advancing, upgrades “special military operation” to “armed conflict”
HOW BAD IS THE RUSSIAN SITUATION?
Putin concedes that Ukraine is advancing, upgrades “special military operation” to “armed conflict”
Vladimir Putin meeting with war correspondents, 13 June 2023
Original article: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/7/30/2183919/-Putin-concedes-that-Ukraine-is-advancing-upgrades-special-military-operation-to-armed-conflict
Peter Burgess COMMENTARY
Peter Burgess
Written by Lincoln Green
Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)
Sunday, July 30, 2023 at 12:29:58p EDT
Yesterday a Russia–Africa summit concluded in St Petersburg, Russia. During the summit, African leaders asked in vain for Vladimir Putin to allow Ukrainian grain shipments through the Black Sea to feed their people.
As reported by RFE/RL today (in Russian), late yesterday at the summit’s concluding press conference, Russian president Vladimir Putin was asked by Kommersant correspondent Andrei Kolesnikov about recent arrests in Russia. Kolesnikov mentioned sociologist Boris Kagarlitsky, arrested after posting about the explosion on the Kerch bridge, and theater director Yevgenia Berkovich, arrested after a performance of a play based on actual events involving Russian women recruited by the Islamic State.
In response, Putin denied knowing anything about Kagarlitsky or Berkovitch, but he had something else interesting to say:
We have 2023. And the Russian Federation is in a state of armed conflict with a neighbor. And I think that there should be a certain attitude towards those people who harm us inside the country,
Here, Putin is using his invasion of Ukraine to justify cracking down on his critics.
And he’s doing something else: he’s calling his invasion an “armed conflict” (“vooruzhennyy konflikt”) instead of the “special military operation” (“spetsial'naya voyennaya operatsiya”) euphemism he has long preferred. Although he’s still not calling his war a “war” (“voyna”), his use of “armed conflict” is a signal that his preferred euphemism isn’t working as well as he’d like.
After a reporter asked about African leaders’ ceasefire proposal, Putin responded:
The Ukrainian army is advancing, they are on the attack, as they say. We cannot cease fire when they attack us.
Here, Putin is saying he won’t negotiate unless the Russians are winning. But he’s also doing something else: he’s publicly admitting that the Russian Army is retreating.
These two phrases may not sound like much to faithful readers of Daily Kos, who have seen many articles on Ukraine and who know that it’s a war not a “special military operation” and that Ukraine is currently advancing, however slowly. However, it is a public concession by Putin that his invasion is facing effective opposition.
Putin appears to be tying to prepare Russians for a long and bloody continuation of his war of conquest. What Putin doesn’t know — and nobody knows — is how Russians will respond to his call.