r/worldnews • u/ArgentineBeauty • 21h ago

Russia/Ukraine ‘We Were Mistaken’: Putin Admits Russia Was Unprepared for Ukrainian Strikes on Oil Refineries

https://www.kyivpost.com/post/83674
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u/Weirdo9495 21h ago

He is obviously dishonest and this is just for internal consumption. He is saying that he did not expect Ukrainians would be so evil to bomb their oil facilities while Russia has been destroying their country. Think for a second how absurd that is. You can not possibly believe a man like Putin can have that level of naivety. Only Russians who like Putin do. With this, he is shifting responsibility from himself and his incompetence/evil to Ukraine and its "evil", and sadly, many Russians are braindead enough to buy it.

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u/Bromonster01 18h ago

That sounds like a familiar premise… I wonder where I could have heard it before…

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u/Shot-Toe-2884 17h ago edited 17h ago

You’re not wrong, and Putin is notoriously cynical about this stuff exactly as you said, but it’s worth mentioning that this kind of rhetoric was very weak for the Putin I remember from 5 years ago. I think that’s telling about how he perceives his own strength today.

Ukrainian pressure may not be yielding peace yet, but it’s pushing Russia down a road they didn’t choose either. Putin is the king of maximal threats and he’s been forced to tone down his rhetoric and shift to a new strategy, and his far right base will take notice of that. The far right speaks a simple language when it comes to strength, they won’t like this more calibrated tone.

Blame shifting doesn’t work for Putin like it used to. Russians can see the wars consequences all around them now. They know who calls the shots.

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u/traplords8n 17h ago

I wouldn't phrase it as Russians being braindead lol. They are subject to the most advanced state propaganda in the world and all of it is state-sanctioned. Their media is entirely controlled by the state.

When you're insulated from real journalism for generations, it becomes Plato's allegory of the cave.

It doesn't really matter how intelligent you are if you've only seen shadow puppets on the cave wall. That's your reality. You're never aware that reality exists outside of the cave.

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u/Orlha 12h ago

Eeeeeeh, you’re not wrong, but the world is all here. I consume all kinds of propaganda equally (a joke; am more western oriented actually, but still). Level of exposure matters.

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u/tar625 17h ago

I'm really curious how many believe it and how many know it's bullshit but aren't willing to speak against it. I'd imagine that state run media + no public pushback can make a lot of otherwise intelligent and reasonable people believe almost anything.

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u/Weirdo9495 17h ago

Unfortunately, it is by now deeply ingrained in Russian culture to be completely apathetic even to obvious lies. The situation where you hear a lie, you know it is a lie, the person next to you knows it is a lie, but you both say it is truth is a common stereotype there, from Soviet times.

Also, the thing with many Russians, even those who realise their government lies - they at the same time choose to believe that elsewhere it is even worse, and that West lies just as much while being evil and wanting to destroy them. So they side with Putin. But for a lot of them it is a post-hoc rationalisation, and accepting what Putin is would cause an immense breakdown in their worldview they couldn't bear with, so they prefer to stick with comfortable lies.

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u/thatjakuguy 10h ago

they’re not completely wrong on the second point…

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u/Evil-EYE-IN-DA-SKY 18h ago

FASD will do that to people.

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u/NIPLZ 16h ago

many Russians are braindead enough to buy it

There are actual people (not bots) from my actual fucking country who are braindead enough to buy it. They have no reason to - they're not exposed solely to Russian propaganda 24/7. And they know exactly who Putin is and what he's capable of. Yet they support him anyway and trash Zelenskyy online. The mind boggles.

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u/rd1970 16h ago

I also think this is setting up the conversation to switch from:

"Look what evil Ukraine did to us."

to

"Look what evil Ukraine did to us - we need to mobilize 400k men in response. Anyone that disagrees is on Ukraine's side and will be dealt with accordingly."

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u/leafhog 15h ago

Did he blame Biden also?

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u/MelangeBot 15h ago

This bully tactic of turning yourself in to the victim even before you start to mess with the victim is so evil. Eventually you have messed with the victim enough and you get a strike back and then you go around claiming "See I told everybody that my victim was dangerous, now look here is proof!"

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u/lol-daisy325121 11h ago

You have one hell of a point