Moscow Publicized Russian Losses in Makeyevka Because It Couldn’t Hide So Many Deaths at Once in a Single Federal Subject, ‘Vyorstka’ Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 5 – Moscow acknowledged the loss of 89 newly mobilized troops in fighting in Makeyevka near Donetsk because it realized it couldn’t hide so many deaths at once given that those involved were from a single federal subject, the Vyorstka news agency says, citing anonymous sources in the Russian government.  

            Up until then, Russian media either denied losses or sought to minimize them, the news agency says; but now it has concluded it must change its approach given its increasing tendency to assign men from one federal subject to the same unit and its inability to block people there from learning the truth either by observation or the Internet (verstka.media/pochemu-vlasti-ne-zamalchivayut-massovuyu-gibel-mobilizovannyh/).

            But some observers think this change has less to do with fears among the regime that their lies will be exposed than with a calculation that reports about such losses will have the effect of mobilizing Russian opinion against Ukraine and making the population more willing to make sacrifices against an enemy who has inflicted so much pain on Russians.