RT by @mikenov: RT by @mikenov: Putin is trapped in his own war – textbook trap. Call up another 500,000? That publicly admits the whole thing is a disaster. Don’t call them up? The front collapses this winter, the military says. 30,000 losses a month and rising. But mass mobilisation scares the Kremlin more than the body bags. It drains an already exhausted workforce, wakes the soldiers’ mothers (the only group that has ever made the Russian state actually sweat), and makes the war personal for every Russian family – exactly what four years of state TV carefully hid behind “special military operation”. No version where he doesn’t have to admit what he’s refused to admit for four years. A wi

Putin is trapped in his own war – textbook trap.
Call up another 500,000? That publicly admits the whole thing is a disaster.

Don’t call them up? The front collapses this winter, the military says.  30,000 losses a month and rising.
But mass mobilisation scares the Kremlin more than the body bags.

It drains an already exhausted workforce, wakes the soldiers’ mothers (the only group that has ever made the Russian state actually sweat), and makes the war personal for every Russian family – exactly what four years of state TV carefully hid behind “special military operation”.
No version where he doesn’t have to admit what he’s refused to admit for four years.

A winning army doesn’t get this choice between bad and worse.  Meanwhile Lavrov keeps swinging that utopian Anchorage dream, hoping Trump will magically deliver “end the war in 24 hours”.

Ukraine and the Europeans: “No deal without us, thanks.”
Lavrov is reaching higher than any beggar outside the Kremlin would ever dare.

— @jalle51 Jul 25, 2026