Kung Chan, ANBOUND
The siege of Russian forces in Lyman is changing the Russian political environment. The Institute for the Study of War, an American think tank, notes that Russia’s failures in Lyman and other parts of the Kharkiv region in northeastern Ukraine, as well as the Kremlin’s failure to effectively and fairly conduct some of its military mobilizations, “are fundamentally changing the Russian information space. The Institute for the Study of War and ANBOUND are doing similar research. The American think tank prefers to provide graphics for social media users to quote and use, while ANBOUND uses a track-and-follow approach so that analysts can monitor how things are evolving.
In fact, much of the criticism directed at the Kremlin has been very harsh. One media outlet wrote: “Times have changed, but the Russian military has not changed, that’s all.” Even China’s CCTV has noticed the change in the political environment of Russia. There is growing criticism of Russian military failures among domestic researchers and commentators as the Ukrainian troops celebrated the recapture of Lyman in eastern Ukraine. Russian military blogs are the first to criticize the Russian army. “The shameful holdout has made the stakes too high.” As Ukrainian forces retake the strategic town of Lyman, commentators who used to be staunch supporters of Putin are now vociferously slamming Russia’s military strategy.
Putin and his spokesman Peskov have adopted an interesting strategy- remain silent. They are waiting for the worrying situation to wind down before giving any explanations or finding other hot button issues to change the public’s attention to Russian army’s current mess.
