Putin held his annual Q&A today, where he made some interesting new statements which I’ll first go over. One of the most notable, to me, was the reiteration of the stated objectives of the SMO. For a long time now Ukrainian sources claimed that Russia was slowly walking back or down-scaling the SMO’s goals as a face-saving measure in light of their putative ‘inability to advance.’ Putin refuted this narrative once and for all, by adamantly restating the goals: ubscribe Sign in Putin's Q&A and Some Revealing Article Roundups on AFU's Deterioration SIMPLICIUS THE THINKER DEC 14, 2023 Putin held...