Roman Kunitsyn
There is a wonderful episode in the film Kill the Dragons, directed by Mark Zakharov, based on the play by Evgeny Schwartz. There is a battle between a three-headed dragon, who has conquered a city, and the knight Lancelot. Despite an official ban, the battle is watched by many residents of the city and, of course, by the burgomaster with his henchmen in the military. The soldiers explain to the burgomaster: “Evil tongues say that the dragon has lost one of his heads.” “What are you talking about?” the burgomaster asks. “We say that the dragon exempted one of his heads from military service for health reasons.” “You mean, to follow its dreams,” the military answer.
I remembered this answer when I read on the internet the explanation of the Defense Ministry of the Russian Federation about what, according to our own generals, has happened in the Kharkiv region on September 10th. According to Telegram channels and both Ukrainian and Russian “military correspondents,” after less than five days of fighting, Russian troops had been pushed out of the region, and the Armed Forces of Ukraine occupied the huge area, now open - about 2 thousand square kilometers. This includes such strategically important cities as Izyum, Balakleya and Kupyansk. The territories for which the Russian army fought for 3 months, spilling blood to advance only several kilometers a day, have been abandoned. A lot of of equipment - warehouses with ammunition, fuels and lubricants - was also left behind. Left to the mercy of fate are those people who collaborated with pro-Russian administrations, or those teachers and doctors who had gone to Russia to improve their skills, or ordinary citizens who had managed to get Russian passports. Now all of them will end up (or are now settling into) Ukrainian “filtration” camps. Alas, in such circumstances it always happens: they find out who collaborated with the enemy.
It is not known how many visiting citizens of the Russian Federation are among them - after all, the Russian regional governors, wanting to please the presidential administration, sent “volunteers” “to the Donbass,” to schools, hospitals, and construction sites. It is surprising that these officials, who until recently were personally snooping around the occupied territories, were not captured. A month ago Khusnullin - the chief architect himself - came to Izyum. I wonder how the Russians would react to his penitential speeches on Ukrainian TV (and I’m not talking about Turchak or Kiriyenko).
In short, the situation is not simple. Even such an ultra-patriot as Yuriy Podolyaka (who has not yet been declared a foreign agent) claims that this is a defeat in the battle for the eastern part of the Kharkov region. The so-called “military correspondents” are shouting about the “catastrophe.” Against this background, the Defense Ministry of the Russian Federation maintained a very long and agonizing silence, which brought the public to a white heat, and then suddenly issued the following statement: “An operation was carried out to curtail and organize the transfer of the Izyum-Balakley group of troops to the territory of the Donetsk Peopl’s Republic.” Well! I would never have believed that these people have obviously remember the scene from Schwartz’s tale, or at least are fans of Zakharov’s film, if I myself had not seen the faces of the generals speaking on the screen, which leaves no doubt about this.
The reaction of politicians at the highest echelon is also indicative. The president (who, by the way, is the commander-in-chief according to the constitution) opened a Ferris wheel in Moscow and visited a boxing gym painted in colors suspiciously reminiscent of the Ukrainian flag. In the evening in Moscow, fireworks coincided with the occupation, hundred of kilometers to the south, of the Armed Forces of Ukraine of several cities of the Kharkiv region. Only the lazy did not screech about this coincidence on the Internet.
The highest officials of the state did not say a word about what happened in the east of Ukraine. The people, excited by the statements of the “Z-patriots” on the catastrophe, are expected to be content with the unconvincing alibis of the Defense Ministry.
In short, there was a “withdrawal of the second head of the dragon,” and, of course, “for her own reasons.” Whether this means we will see a change in the Special Military Operation or that the alternation of attacks and counterattacks will continue, turning the operation into a protracted one, I don’t know. Let military analysts judge this. Political experts are clear about something else - the authorities have neither the language nor the understanding to express this rapidly changing reality. The myth of the cunning plan, which has allegedly mastered the events of the last half-year, seems to have been finally dispelled; now they no longer believe such a thing exists, even the most ardent official ultra-patriots. The propaganda machine will soon no longer be able to control the masses.
The situation is aggravated by the fact that it is even more absurd than in Schwartz’s fairy tale. A propagandist who worked for the dragon could at least say that the beast had a clear goal - say, to defeat the “foreign agent,” Lancelot, who dared to encroach on the “sovereign city,” slandered the “dear dragon,” and threatened to bring in his wake liberalism, chaos, and gypsyism. From the very beginning, the Russian authorities have fidgeted and contradicted themselves: first they declare that the goal of the SMO is “the liberation of Donbass,” then they claim that all of Ukraine requires “denazification,” then they howl that they are resisting NATO and the West, or it will suggest that they didn’t even start any fight in the first place. The postmodern dragon does not tell anyone what he really wants. Or maybe he doesn’t even know this himself, since this would require all three heads to agree on something.
In general, life is not a fairy tale, everything is more complicated.