The situation in Ukraine is interesting. One thing that has quickly become apparent is that about 90% of "information" that we receive about it is either deliberate misinformation or, at best, unverified fake news. Regardless of whether the sources of information are Russian, Ukrainian or Western, they all lie to fit their narratives. It kind of makes you wonder how much of what we "know" about past military conflicts is the truth, as opposed to fabricated propaganda.
According to the Russians, Ukraine is a country led by a gang of alcoholic neo-nazis (with the chief neo-nazi being a jew
) and the Ukrainian population needs to be rescued from their clutches. It's like they are not even trying to come up with anything remotely believable.
According to the Ukrainians, Russian casualties are in the tens of thousands and a mythical Ukrainian fighter jet pilot is single-handedly responsible for taking out half of the Russian air force. It's quite amazing how the Ukrainian government can, in the same breath, claim that their military is inflicting crushing losses on the enemy, while at the same time desperately beg for more weapons and a no-fly zone...or how they can claim that their ranks are overflowing with "volunteers" while they are instituting a universal draft for all males between the ages of 18 and 60. The fact that Western media breathlessly repeats this nonsense without any kind of verifiaction is perhaps not surprising.
According to the West, Putin wants to restore the Soviet Union. The fact that Putin has been in power for over two decades and has, so far, taken no steps to restore the Soviet Union is conveniently omitted. And of course, the war in Ukraine has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the West has been using Ukraine as a pawn in the decades-long chess game against Russia. The CIA-funded 2013/2014 anti-Russian uprising, the repeated promises to make Ukraine a part of NATO and to station American troops there, the well-known plan to use the "Ukraine model" to trigger a regime change in Russia - none of that has
anything at all to do with what's happening in Ukraine right now, according to your friendly purveyors of "reliable" information (a.k.a. the mainstream media).
Despite the misinformation campaigns, a few logical conclusions can be made after two weeks of this conflict. First of all, the actual scope of fighting appears to be quite limited. The Russian military is clearly holding back and not resorting to the kind of tactics they used in Syria. There is no mass bombardment or artillery shelling of civilian areas or civil infrastructure. There is limited use of air power and the Russians appear more interested in encircling Ukrainian cities than engaging in urban warfare. So far, civilian casualties have been very limited and it is likely that military casualties are also limited. The fact that we have seen virtually no footage of fighting on the ground (except for fake videos from video games or past conflicts) suggests that there isn't much fighting actually taking place.
The second conclusion is that the sanctions are not working and will likely have unintended consequences. Putin surely knew that there would be massive sanctions if he invaded Ukraine but he did it anyway. Why? Because Putin and his inner circle were already under sanctions even before the invasion. The new sanctions will hurt regular people and will be perceived as a hostile act by a foreign enemy. This, in turn, will actually
increase support for Putin among average Russians (just like the suffering caused by WWII increased support for Stalin). Putin cealrly understands this, while Western leaders unfortunately do not.