Thread by @ChrisO_wiki

1/ The Russian government is a "great hypnotoad" that is trying to distract the population from the fact that things are bad and about to get worse, says Russian warblogger Anastasia Kashevarova. She complains that the government is attempting to "zombify people". ⬇️

2/ A common complaint among Russian warbloggers in recent months has been that the Russian government frequently but ineptly tries to play down the deteriorating situation with the Ukraine war, through so-called "anti-crisis" propaganda or simply not mentioning Ukrainian attacks.

3/ They point out that this is highly ineffective and erodes trust in the government, as anyone with an Internet connection can see – even on Russian pro-war Telegram channels – that things are not going well.

4/ Some argue that the government isn't being straight with people about the future either. Kashevarova (who is very pro-war) says that the government is bamboozling people into thinking that there isn't going to be "a coming bloodbath with the West":

5/ "The situation is difficult, very difficult. I don't think our people had all that much faith in Trump. What was said publicly, this whole "spirit of Anchorage," the attempt to initiate a peace process—on our part, this is also a delaying of a direct confrontation…

6/ …with the West. An attempt to buy time, and, of course, there was the possibility, a very slim one, that it might work out.

Today's statements, already public, indicate that we are a hair's breadth away from a direct confrontation with the collective West.

7/ "I don't even want to think that 'Alaska' was conceived to buy time to arm Kyiv, but in reality, it turned out the way it did," Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said today. Lavrov not only thought this, he knew it.

8/ "The Russian President said today: "Western countries haven't yet reached the point of attacking Russia from their own territory; they understand there will be a retaliatory strike... Western countries are openly talking about preparing for war with Russia."

9/ "And I can tell you, the front is still coping with its limited forces and the enemy's air superiority. The rear isn't coping.

10/ "Some in high places didn't want to entertain the terrifying thought of a coming bloodbath with the West.Instead of preparing intensively and reorganising, the emphasis was placed on instilling in the minds of Russians, via the media,…

11/ …the idea that what we’re facing is a localised conflict, a ‘special military operation’—not a war at all. And as for the fact that drones have been reaching as far as Omsk – well, that’s just a psychological attack. Don’t worry. Don’t worry. Don’t worry…

12/ "So, there's this huge hypnotoad at work inside the country, explaining to people that losses at the front, the left-wing capture of Kupyansk, the 5th or 10th liberation of the LPR during the Special Military Operation, the strikes on oil refineries and gasoline shortages,…

13/ …the closure of highways to Crimea, the shelling of highways in Donbas, Rostov, Belgorod, Bryansk, Voronezh, and so on, missile strikes deep into the country, the deaths of civilians in the Moscow region, the murder of generals in Moscow—it's all a psychological attack.

14/ "Forgive me, but trying to explain to the parents of the eight-year-old who died in the Moscow region, or the parents of children killed in Starobilsk, Belgorod, Kursk, Bryansk, and Donetsk, that this is a psychological attack is simply brutal.

15/ "But even that failed. You can't just snap a finger and make people stop worrying, especially when drones are attacking Russian regions every day, when people see the situation on the front lines, when civilians are dying deep in the rear, when thousands of…

16/ …assholes recruited by the SBU and GUR are being rounded up by the FSB every day.

It's normal to worry. I'm an anxious person, like many others. Anxious people prepare for the worst, they think up plans А and Б, and when they run out of Cyrillic, they switch to Latin.

17/ "It's not normal to panic or to lie every day that everything is under control, everything is fine, when it's not.

18/ "It's not normal to zombify people and prevent them from being prepared for a serious fight for their lives, for the lives of their children and for their homeland." /end

Source:
t.me/akashevarova/8…