Correction: ISW has updated a paragraph about the new federal budget law in Russia to correctly define the allocated figures as GDP forecasts informing the federal budget.

Toplines

Russian state media is leveraging Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent statements to intensify the false narrative that the frontline in Ukraine will imminently collapse, likely in an effort to coerce the West and Ukraine into capitulating to Russian demands that Russia cannot secure itself militarily. ISW continues to assess that the frontline in Ukraine is not facing imminent collapse. A prominent Kremlin-affiliated milblogger observed that the Russian state media, following Putin’s November 27 press conference, is widely spreading false claims that the frontline in Ukraine is collapsing as Ukrainian forces desert and surrender en masse and leave large areas undefended; that Russian forces will soon drive on Kyiv City; and that Russian forces have already defeated Ukrainian forces and only have to “finish them off.”[1] The milblogger accused Russian state media of fabricating some territorial successes and amplifying Putin’s exaggerated claims, using artificial intelligence (AI) to generate fake videos of Ukrainian forces surrendering, and deliberately targeting social media users. Russian state media is also trying to reinforce the Kremlin’s efforts to create a perception that Russian forces will inevitably collapse sectors of the frontline in Ukraine, destroy Ukraine’s most...

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