A bully has his nose bloodied: Putin is not quite the strategic genius

Russia will undoubtedly win the war but the battle for the world’s hearts and minds is being won hands down by the Ukrainians.

Not many in the international community even pretend to believe the Russian line that it was forced to launch a “special military operation” to prevent genocide.

Or that it is imperative from a Russian state that is becoming steadily more totalitarian to carry out the “demilitarisation and de-Nazification” of its democratic neighbour.

It must be vexing for Russia that its war crimes are taking place in the full glare of digital publicity.

It’s far more difficult to massage world opinion, or hide atrocities, when virtually every move is being streamed live on the cellphones of 40 million Ukrainians.

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Given the ubiquity of electronic media, it is telling that Putin’s reasons for attacking have not been vindicated with gruesome footage of mass graves, or of jubilant crowds embracing their anti-fascist liberators.

Not surprising, then, that Russia has tried everything possible to impede the free flow of information.

It’s closed the few remaining independent radio and television stations and blocked media websites in the Ukraine and Russia that are not slavishly pro-war.

Just using the word “war” can now carry a 15-year jail sentence, in terms of legislation hastily passed by the Russian parliament against fake news.

Russia has also cut access to several foreign “fake news” websites, including Deutsche Welle and the BBC.

In retaliation, the European Union switched off the Russian state-controlled media network RT.

YouTube, TikTok and Facebook followed suit. These tit-for-tat gestures are of symbolic significance only.

While the BBC’s response to its banning is charmingly quaint – it has launched four hours daily of shortwave radio news broadcasts to Ukraine and Russia – it is also utterly pointless.

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All that is required to circumvent most digital censorship is the technical knowledge that is already genetically encoded in anyone over the age of six.

Often, the censorship backfires, as it did on Monday when the Channel One live news broadcast – with an audience of 17 million – was interrupted by one of the station’s producers, Marina Ovsyannikova.

She dashed onto the set brandishing a placard reading “No war! Don’t believe the propaganda. They’re lying to you here.”

The Russian news agency, Tass said, that Ovsyannikova would likely be charged under a law that bans public acts aimed at “discredit the use of Russia’s armed forces”.

Instead, wisely in public relations terms, she was brought before a lower court, found guilty of “organising an unauthorised public event” and fined about R500.

Blatantly biased and partisan news broadcasts are, of course, not the sole preserve of despotic regimes.

CNN’s hysterical, distorted coverage of former president Donald Trump, loathsome though he is, was perhaps the lowest point in journalism, as opposed to propaganda, in living memory.

In contrast to the Russians, the Ukrainians have been reaping masses of good publicity.

On the one side we have a photogenic and engaging president who was a former actor and comedian.

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On the other, a president who, before becoming a warmonger, learnt his social skills as a head thumper and toenail extractor in the KGB.

It further helps that no one likes a bully. But everyone likes to see a bully have his nose bloodied.

Putin’s blitzkrieg, which was intended to place him on President Volodymyr Zelensky’s front lawn before breakfast, hasn’t exactly gone as planned.

While his military machine will prevail, the events of the past couple of weeks have shown that Putin is not quite the strategic genius he thought himself to be and that the Russian bear has vulnerabilities that few predicted.

Putin might win the war, yet be strategically weakened.

Russian TV cuts Putin mid-speech