Maybe Putin doesn’t massively retaliate, although he’s often urged to do so, because he knows Ukraine’s “provocations” are essentially PR stunts. From Simplicius at simplicius76.substack.com:
In response to the last week of Ukrainian provocations Putin released a long statement accusing Ukraine of slipping into terrorism and sabotaging the peace talks:
[see article for video]
Putin made a number of statements:
– Ukraine is suffering huge losses and is retreating along the entire front line, so it is trying to intimidate Russia with terrorist attacks
– The Kiev regime, already illegitimate, is degenerating into a terrorist organization, and its sponsors are becoming accomplices of terrorists
– The terrorist attack on the train in the Bryansk region is a targeted attack on civilians
– The Kyiv regime “does not need peace at all”, since it would mean a loss of power for them
– A lull in military action would be used by Kyiv for forced mobilization, pumping up weapons, and preparing terrorist attacks.
Obviously it’s a rather perfunctorily lukewarm address given the amount of things that have occurred in just the last few days alone, but the one important takeaway is Putin seems to have hardened in his stance that it would be pointless to allow Ukraine any long ceasefire respites.
Those expecting a furious Russian response—i.e. carpet bombing Kiev with Oreshniks, and the like—were bound to be disappointed in Russia’s reaction. And even more so by the statements of certain Russian officials, in this case from the Deputy Foreign Minister Ryabkov, who claimed that not a single Russian plane was ‘destroyed’ in Ukraine’s long-planned drone raid:
Vlad pets his pet Leopard tank.
Thanks for the free Abrams.
Aren’t you supposed to blow up or set fire to gear?
Average Intelligence says RF attacked a hospital in Sumy back in September.
It is fake and GAE just like everything else.
Online picked apart the 404 drone attack as CGI graphics.
Not being able to trust anything is part of Polycrisis?
May the bicycle horn be with you.