ISW: Russia’s culture of lying harms its ability to wage war
Kyiv • UNN
Analysts assess that exaggerated reports by the Russian military are harming Russia’s operations. At the same time, the Kremlin uses fabricated gains in its demands toward Ukraine.
The widespread culture of lying in the Russian armed forces paradoxically harms the ability of Russian forces to fight effectively and supports the Kremlin’s exaggerated claims that Putin is using weapons to strengthen Russia’s negotiating position. This is stated in a report by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), UNN reports.
Details
It is noted that Russian milbloggers continue to highlight the consequences of the widespread Russian culture of lying, which they refer to as the creation of "good reports" that exaggerate the scale of Russian advances to such an extent that they harm military operations.
However, the Kremlin continues to insist on its delusional portrayal of the current battlefield as the basis for negotiations, demanding Ukraine’s complete capitulation and the withdrawal of its troops from all of the Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions, including large and densely populated areas that Russian forces have not yet occupied
In their assessment, Putin has shown that he is sensitive to accusations of being detached from the current realities of the battlefield in Ukraine; however, he continues to make "absurd claims about fabricated Russian gains."
The Kremlin’s continued willingness to tolerate and seek to benefit from the widespread lying of the Russian military continues both to harm its own ability to fight effectively and to fuel its insistence that it is capable of achieving all its objectives by military force
They add that negotiations to ensure a strong and lasting peace "cannot be based on Russian lies": they can be based only on the realities of the battlefield and the trajectory of the war, which is unfavorable to Russia.
We remind you
Russia’s political leadership seeks to capture Donbas by the end of 2026, while the military is asking to move the deadline to March 31, 2027. This was reported by Pavlo Palisa, Deputy Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine.