There is increasing evidence that Moscow assumed a quick victory and that the state media had also been prepared for it.

This is shown by an incident at the state news agency Ria.

The published a prepared comment in which the author celebrated Russia's victory over Ukraine.

Frederick Smith

Political correspondent for Russia and the CIS in Moscow.

  • Follow I follow

The comment was apparently published in error on Saturday morning – the night after the failed first major attack on Kyiv – and was quickly taken offline, but saved in the web archive.

Such occurrences occur because media prepare articles for expected events in order to be able to quickly reach their readers.

Only recently did Moscow smack the American media service Bloomberg, which counterfactually reported the start of the Russian invasion a few days before the Russian invasion, before withdrawing the relevant article.

Now Ria's text, a paraphrase of statements made by Putin on the role of Ukraine and the struggle with the West, assumes a victory.

The headline of the comment can be translated as "Dawn of Russia and the New World" or "Attack of Russia and the New World".

Ria columnist Pyotr Akopov celebrates that "Russia's military operation in Ukraine has ushered in a new era."

He assumes a victory in all of Ukraine.

This would have surprised the Russians positively at the beginning of last weekend, after all they had been prepared by Putin and the state media and for a limited "operation" in the Donbass.

Commentator writes about collection of the Russian world

"Russia is restoring its unity," writes Akopov, referring to the Soviet Union, whose borders Putin has repeatedly described as "historical Russia."

The “tragedy of 1991” of the collapse of the Soviet Union was “overcome.

Yes, at a high price, yes, about the tragic events of a de facto civil war, because brothers are still shooting at each other,” writes Akopov, apparently as a safeguard in the event that individual Ukrainians should still resist.

"But Ukraine as an anti-Russian country will no longer exist," it says, using a quote from Putin that is often used among Moscow's elite.

“Russia restores its historical fullness, gathers the Russian world, the Russian people together, in its entirety of Great Russians, Belarusians and Little Russians”;

the latter means the Ukrainians.

Had Russia not done so, but allowed “the temporary division to solidify into centuries, we would not only have betrayed the memory of our ancestors, but we would have been cursed by our descendants for allowing the Russian (sic) earth to fall apart would have".

Putin has taken on "historic responsibility" by deciding "not to leave the solution of the Ukrainian question to future generations".

This was necessary so that the Ukraine would not become "anti-Russia and not an outpost of the West to put pressure on us".

Staged patriotic outcry

Putin has repeatedly emphasized this fact and thus justified a preventive war intended to prevent future risks after Ukraine joins NATO.

Probably because it was planned to stage a patriotic upsurge after a hypothetical quick victory, Akopov writes that this factor is only secondary, "the first has always been the complex of the divided people, the complex of national degradation".

Bringing Ukraine "back to Russia" would have become "more difficult with each passing decade" due to "recoding" and "de-Russification" of Ukrainians;

Putin also complained about that.

Had, according to Akopov, “the West consolidated total geopolitical and military control” over Ukraine “its return to Russia would have become completely impossible – it would have had to be fought with the Atlantic bloc”.

But now, according to the victory commentary, "this problem does not exist - Ukraine has returned to Russia".

This does not mean that "its statehood will be dissolved", but that Ukraine will be "rebuilt, re-established and brought back to its natural state as part of the Russian world".