As highlighted by Josh Marshall for TalkingPointsMemo, here’s a fascinating bit of candor from a commentator on Russian state TV. In so many words, the war is not going well, Ukrainian morale and NATO military aid are a decisive factor, and despite their fervent hopes, Republican Sen. Rand Paul’s efforts to salvage the situation on Russia’s behalf are likely to fail.
As Marshall notes, this is a highly unusual breach of the propaganda wall Russia has erected to sanitize the war for the Russian people:
One of the panelists is a Russian military affairs commentator who goes completely rogue and starts setting forth the dire strategic picture Russia faces – poor morale, an almost unlimited supply of soldiers in Ukraine, arms pouring in from Europe and the United States geopolitical isolation.
The clip is below, and worth watching in its entirety, as the Russian military pundit Mikhail Khodaryonok describes the challenges the Russian military is facing. What is particularly interesting is that the objections, such as they are, coming from the pro-government Putin cheerleader Olga Skabeyeva, are so feeble.
But the moment of unintentional hilarity, as noted by Marshall, is when Khodaryonok points obliquely to the junior Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, currently blocking congressional aid to Ukraine, as the lone hero protecting Mother Russia from what looks increasingly like a Ukrainian triumph.
He doesn’t refer to Paul by name but he notes that the Lend-Lease type program is finally getting underway, marrying unlimited troops with unlimited weaponry “and even the resistance of a single senator will be overcome quickly.”
Will Sen. Paul stand up for Russia in this, its most critical hour of need?