Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has confirmed that there is infighting in the Kremlin’s inner circle and that the Kremlin has lost centralized control over Russia’s information space, a Washington-based think tank reported.
The Institute for the Study of War’s latest assessment of the war in Ukraine said Zakharova made the comments on Saturday at a Moscow forum on technology and information. The assessment says Zakharova conceded that the Kremlin could not replicate the Stalinist approach of creating a modern equivalent of the Soviet Information Bureau to centrally control Moscow’s message because of the fighting among the Kremlin’s unidentified “elites”.
The assessment suggests that Zakharova may have discussed these issues publicly to lower expectations that Kremlin leaders would publicly approve the policy.
“Zakharova’s statement is noteworthy and supports many of the older ISW assessments about the deterioration of the Kremlin system and the control dynamics of the information space,” says the assessment.
“This is inhumane.” Poland and Slovakia ready to send fighter jets to Kiev; Russian Missiles Over Ukraine: Updates
Developments:
The British government urged the Olympics’ largest sponsors to put pressure on the International Olympic Committee to ban Russian athletes. British Culture Secretary Lucy Fraser said Moscow would use sports for propaganda during the war in Ukraine.
Thousands of Ukrainians gathered in Kiev to say goodbye to Dmytro Kotsiopailo, who was killed in action near Bakhmut on 7 March.
Wagner’s mercenaries were reportedly struggling to advance towards Bakhmut
Mercenary Wagner Group fighters are likely to become “increasingly confined” to urban areas in and around Bakhmut and find it difficult to make significant advances in an area that has been the primary focus of Russia’s war in recent weeks, the Institute for the Study of War assessment says. On Saturday, the Russian forces continued their ground attacks in the Bakhmut region and its environs, but they did not make any confirmed progress inside the city, according to the assessment.
Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin apparently drove within a mile of the administrative center of Bakhmut, but several Russian military bloggers have claimed that Ukrainian forces appear to be preparing a counterattack in Bakhmut, according to the assessment.
The spokesman for the Eastern Ukrainian Group of Armed Forces, Colonel Serhiy Shrivaty, said the fighting in Bakhmut was more intense last week than in the previous week.
Contributing: The Associated Press
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