"The fox said sourly about the rowan berries", it says, in the fable where the fox emphasizes that he does not want the sweet berries he still cannot get.

The fact that the grapes that it was actually about became rowan berries in the Swedish translation makes the whole thing somewhat confusing, because they are actually sour (compare with the English "sour grapes").

Sorrow aside, we've probably all heard someone - maybe ourselves - explain that that party you weren't invited to was boring anyway or that things that go against you don't matter anyway.

This is also how a large part of the tone of voice from the Russian power sounds about deliveries of Western weapons to Ukraine.

It doesn't matter that Western countries send tanks and artillery pieces, you see, their importance is grossly exaggerated.

At least that's what they want to convey to the outside world, something the Russian ambassador to the United States gave an example of last night.

- The American tanks will undoubtedly be destroyed just like all other examples of NATO equipment, says Ambassador Anatoly Antonov.

Contradictory messages

Or yes, outwardly and outwardly.

As with so many political statements, the audience is both domestic and foreign.

Russia wants to fuel doubts in the West about continued support for Ukraine.

For example, by claiming that the costly aid accomplishes nothing.

At the same time, downplaying the significance can help to reassure the home audience, to whom the message is that everything is of course going according to plan.

But while Russia claims that the support from the West makes no difference, they say at the same time that it is a frightening escalation.

- This extremely dangerous decision takes the conflict to a new level of confrontation and goes against statements by German politicians about Germany's reluctance to be drawn into it, says Ambassador Sergey Netyayev.

These kinds of statements instead approach another possible opening.

Namely, a concern or even fear among both people and politicians in, for example, Germany, which Russia can hope to scare into refraining from helping Ukraine.

Want to convince the world

How decisive the new tanks will actually be depends on several things, not the least of which is Ukraine's ability to use them to maximum advantage.

But Ukraine knows what they think is needed, and based on that has asked for tanks.

But war is also very much about propaganda, and through propaganda Russia wants to cut what is seen as Ukraine's lifeline from the outside.

The fact that Russia's different rhetorical approaches clash with each other does not matter much to the Kremlin.

Moscow doesn't need to logically piece these things together but just aim for any political vulnerabilities it can find.

Few inside Russia seem to even be able to imagine that the war can actually be lost.

Russia's war of aggression against a country that is regarded with a colonial eye as - at best - a kind of disobedient child who does not know its own best but has ended up in bad company and must be reprimanded by force.

The key to victory is for what are seen as weak and comfortable Western countries to give up their support for Ukraine.

It is simply believed that Russia is more determined and more persistent.

They also want the outside world to believe that.