Russia repatriated 4 provinces yesterday. I don’t think they care that much about Lyman at the moment.
Russia will continue to repatriate sections of the Ukraine until the MSM pro Ukranian farce stops and leaders stop pretending to send money to the Ukraine.
Biden et. al. pretend to send money to the Ukraine but I don’t believe the dollars ever leave the continental US. Notice we have an influx of Ukrainian cheerleaders every time Biden promises ‘the Ukraine’ more money? Our deep state is slurping up whatever taxpayer funds are dropped in the trough.
Lyman has one unique oddity...it’s where the Russian rail-line dumps off cargo for the front, and the ‘hub’ disperses ammo and supplies to the frontline by truck. If Lyman is taken and the logistics situation is terminated there....then the Russians would have to recreate a new logistics hub (probably 50 to 100 miles further south, and in a hurry).
If you were a Russian Conscript at the front and being told that food and ammo for two weeks might be a problem...then your confidence is going to be shaken.
They didn’t “repatriate” anything.
They carried out a bit of symbolic tubthumping kabuki theater that most of Russia knows is bollocks, and the international community knows is farcical and illegal.
The Donbas - a region spread across parts of the Lugansk and Donetsk regions - is the only section of the entire annexed region that Russia had even a paper-thin moral claim to.
Russia didn’t ballot Zaporizhzhia. A Russian TV station gave a total vote count of less than 40,000 for a province with a population of 1.666 million at the start of the conflict, and that included empty ballot sheets being put in the “yes” pile live on Russian TV news.
The 800,000+ people in Zaporizhzhia city didn’t get a vote, and most people in the occupied territory boycotted it. Russia had to go door to door with guns to get a pitiful number of crosses and when even that failed they counted the unused sheets as “yes” votes.
But as you say, the Russians don’t care about Lyman just as much as they don’t care about the reality in the Oblasts.
Leonid Pasechnik (Lugansk) and Denis Pushilin (Donetsk) are the only two separatist leaders out of the four who represent regions where there was any real appetite for Russian annexation.
The other two guys are literally just random opportunist sad sacks making a name for themselves by exploiting the occupation, and both were signing a bunch of documents that even Putin knows are totally worthless.
If Putin really does want the annexation to mean something, expect shock, awe and maybe even a nuke to hit Zaporizhzhia City. It is, after all, the most densely populated pocket of “Russophobia” inside the annexed region.
If he makes no move on it at all, then that tells you the annexation is complete theater. Putin doesn’t want these little places, he wants Russian cultural capital to be spread around the globe.
Over the last 75 years America has exported cars, cartoons, movies, TV shows, art, industries, technologies, franchises, and liberal values all without having to fire a shot. Funny thing about the free world is, it happily bought what America sold. Us Brits only celebrate Halloween like America does because we watched E.T. and loved it.
Macdonalds is a global business because people like the idea that wherever they go in the world, if they order a burger they know exactly what they’ll get AND they’ll get it in minutes.
Look at what Russia exports successfully. Oil, gas and other minerals. Grain. Borscht. Caviar. Vodka, The Lada Riva. The Bolshoi Ballet. Cybercrime. Ransomware. Kaspersky. Telegram. Hundred year old literature.
There’s some really awesome Russian movies, cartoons and TV shows - how does the West watch them? Netflix and Channel Crime!
Does anyone drive a Russian built car? I last saw a Lada Riva on my travels in Eastern Europe many years ago, next to a rusted up Yugo Zastava. The only marque from that era that isn’t a joke today is Skoda - which is now a Western brand.
That’s what gets Putin’s goat. Russkyi Mir is selling Scotch Mist. There is no new tangible product other than what’s been around for decades.
Basically, Russia isn’t being “oppressed” by the West, the 11 time zone country has had more than thirty years to prove it is capable of inventing something that isn’t utterly shit and would have mass market appeal, and it failed.
Ukraine exported cossack dancing better than Russia exported any Russian folk dancing.
That’s how shit Russia is. This war of influence is really just a cover for Putin having the most well-earned inferiority complex.