The impotence and frustration burst from the screen during the daily propaganda talk shows on Russian TV. „The cruiser Moskva is a case belli”, shouted TV director Vladimir Bortko. “100 percent! We must answer, but how?”
The missile cruiser Moskva (Moscow), the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, sank off the coast of Odessa last Thursday. Earlier, the Ukrainian General Staff said it had carried out a successful attack with two ‘Neptune’ cruise missiles. Russia’s defense ministry only spoke of a “fire” and “explosions” that led to the sinking of the Moskva – the worst naval loss since the British torpedoed by the Argentine cruiser General Belgrano, during the Falklands War, in 1982.
However, on Russian state TV, the speakers did not question the real cause of the loss of the Moskva. “This is our flagship!” exclaimed director Bortko. “This is an attack on the homeland!”
“We may not be fighting with NATO itself, but at least with NATO’s infrastructure.”
But who had carried out that attack? How could those Ukrainians have exposed the Russian navy like that? Presenter Olga Skabejeva searched for words.
“We may not be fighting NATO itself,” she said grimly. “But at least with the NATO infrastructure.”
After six weeks of war, Russia’s “special military operation” has ended in an ignominious retreat around Kiev and other northern cities. And as Moscow tries to regroup for a decisive battle in the Donbas, the Ukrainians drove one of the largest Russian warships to the basement.
No more navy
From a military point of view, the Moskva’s sinking is not decisive – since the annexation of Crimea and the confiscation of the Ukrainian warships, Kiev no longer has a navy. But warships are pre-eminently symbols of military might. The Ukrainian postal system released a new patriotic stamp last week, based on the ‘heroic’ resistance of the handful of defenders of ‘Snake Island’. “Warship, fuck off,” the Ukrainian border guards shouted when the ‘Moskva’ lay down in front of their harbor.
That wish has quickly become a reality. “The loss of the Moskva,” writes the American Institute for the Study of War, “is a major propaganda victory for Ukraine.”
In that propaganda war, it is becoming increasingly difficult for the Kremlin to explain how the Russian armed forces, the second most powerful army on earth, have made so little progress against the “nationalists” and “fascists” led by a government was considered an unstable ‘junta’.
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Western military observers go from one surprise to the next. The Russian air force, much larger and more modern than Ukraine’s, has still failed to achieve total air superiority. Russian ground operations are a total mess: every time a Russian tank column advances somewhere, the Ukrainian artillery seems to be waiting for it – with deadly consequences.
Force Breakthrough
On May 9, Russia commemorates the victory over Nazi Germany with a large military parade across Red Square. According to various sources, President Putin wants to force a breakthrough somewhere before that date: in Mariupol, which is still being defended tooth and nail, or around Sloyansk and Kramatorsk, where the main force of the Ukrainian army is deployed. The chances of that victory being won in time are shrinking by the day.
No wonder that propagandist Olga Skabejeva is now talking about a de facto war with NATO. Even before the Russian invasion, the West supplied thousands of anti-tank missiles to Ukraine, which have played a decisive role. And while Russia is standing up again, more and more NATO countries are willing to provide Ukraine with heavier weapons: from old Soviet tanks to heavy artillery.
Last Wednesday, the Biden administration announced a new $800 million aid package. The war in Ukraine is thus developing more and more in a proxy war between East and West, by analogy with Afghanistan in the 1980s. Albeit that the Ukrainian ‘mujahideen’ are not clandestinely, but openly provided with modern Western weapons.
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So far, the Kremlin does not seem to have formulated an adequate response. The Washington Post reported this week on a diplomatic letter in which Russia warns the US that further arms supplies to Ukraine will lead to “unpredictable consequences.” “The special operation in Ukraine has already ended in World War III,” said presenter Olga Skabejeva on Thursday. But for now, Moscow has not dared to go further than another barrage of missiles on Ukrainian cities, including Kiev. For now, Putin seems unwilling to draw the ultimate consequence of his failed military adventure: to declare a state of war and to summon tens of thousands of conscripts to die in Ukraine.
A version of this article also appeared in NRC Handelsblad on 16 April 2022
A version of this article also appeared in NRC on the morning of April 16, 2022