What is Ukraine Doing?

Why absorb the hits, if you can respond?

Donald Trump and Bashar al-Assad have kept the Kremlin and the virulent Russian ultranationalist community awake and on edge over the past few days.

Trump’s publication of the desperately hidden data on Russian casualty numbers — 600,000, which the Kremlin had been concealing — sent Russia into a mini-scramble to refute the claim. They tried to dance around it, but their attempts miserably failed. Trump stating that 600,000 Russians are gone carries a vastly different weight compared to Zelensky making the same statement using identical words.

The impact on Russian Telegram channels will be dramatically different.

It was amusing to watch.

Two presidents, Trump and Putin, both adept at waging war in the information sphere, trying to push narratives that serve their interests. It was a lengthy post by Trump, but within it, the President-elect embedded the statement that the war is going disastrously for Russia.

Sadly, Putin can’t attack Trump. Even the prominent Russian ultranationalists are carefully avoiding Donald Trump.