Cormac Smith on Russia's Pokrovsk Offensive and Information Warfare

The Battle for Pokrovsk

• ⚔️ The fighting in Pokrovsk is described as street-to-street combat, likened to Mariupol, with Russians advancing slowly at an enormous cost.
• 🎯 Russia has committed an estimated 100,000-150,000 men to take Pokrovsk, suffering 700-800 casualties daily.
• ⏳ Despite the intense fighting, Ukraine is managing to keep supply corridors open and rotate troops in and out of the city.

Russian Negotiation Tactics and Deception

• 🗣️ An article by former Ukrainian Commander Valerii Zaluzhnyi highlights that Russia's aim in negotiations is not peace but delay and conquest through deception.
• 🔑 The article emphasizes that the only language the Kremlin respects is consistency backed by power, exploiting empathy and interpreting goodwill as weakness.
• 🤥 This aligns with historical observations, including the concept of "maskirovka" (masking and misdirection) and "vranyo" (lying) in Russian doctrine, as exemplified by the Salisbury poisoning incident.
• 💡 The distinction between "pravda" (convenient truth) and "istina" (truth of the heart) in the Russian language is noted, with "pravda" being the version consistently presented.

Western Misunderstanding of Russia and Ukraine

• 🌍 There's a critique of Western leaders for not learning the lesson that dealing with Russia requires a position of power, a lesson Ukraine has understood for years.
• 🧠 The importance of seeing Russia through Ukrainian eyes, and the eyes of other Eastern European nations like Poland and the Baltics, is stressed.
• 🏛️ An arrogance among some Western diplomats is noted, assuming their own methods are automatically superior without understanding the sophistication and resilience of people from former Soviet bloc countries.
• 💔 Many Ukrainians and others from the region have deep historical trauma from Russian/Soviet oppression, including stories of the Gulag, which informs their perspective.

Ukraine's Strategy and Economic Warfare

• ⏳ The battle for Pokrovsk, while costly, is seen as buying vital time for Ukraine, similar to the strategies employed in Mariupol and Bakhmut.
• 💰 Ukraine is strategically attacking Russia's energy infrastructure, particularly oil refineries, to cripple its war machine.
• ⛽ By taking offline over 40% of Russia's oil refining capacity, Ukraine is directly impacting Russia's revenue, which is crucial for funding the war.
• 📉 Projections suggest this pressure, if maintained, will significantly strain the Russian economy, which is described as a "gas station with nukes" that is running out of gas.

The Information War

• 📰 The importance of the information sphere in this conflict is paramount, arguably more so than in any previous war.
• ⚠️ There is a significant concern that Ukraine and the West are not winning the information war, with Ukraine's plight having largely disappeared from Western news headlines.
• 📢 Russia is accused of seeking false victories through hybrid warfare and information manipulation, making it critical to keep Ukraine in the headlines.