Selling Defeat: How Putin Will Turn Failure into Victory in Ukraine

Elvira Bary

Putin promised triumph in Ukraine. Now the Kremlin must turn failure into victory.  👉 What World Leaders NEED to Know about Russia: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6d9EIByxz1AdkmIOYUlrDd0rmByq5zSN   In this episode, Elvira Bary breaks down how the Kremlin may try to sell defeat as victory if the war in Ukraine ends without the triumph Putin promised. Kyiv did not fall, Ukraine still stands, and Russia has paid a staggering price — but authoritarian regimes cannot simply admit failure. So the target shifts from Ukraine to “the collective West,” exhausted people are offered peace as the ruler’s gift, ultrapatriots are rebranded as extremists, veterans are absorbed into controlled channels, and scraps of conquest are turned into symbols of greatness. This is how a fake victory gets manufactured — and why the need to manufacture it reveals weakness, not strength.  Video Chapters:   00:00 How Putin Will Turn Failure into Victory in Ukraine 02:41 The Victory Problem  05:32 Victory Against Whom? 09:31 The Ultrapatriot Problem 12:49 The Veteran Channel  14:53 The Peace Thaw  17:15 The New Victory Myth 19:51 The Fight Inside the System   JOIN ME ON THE JOURNEY 👉 Sign-up for news a

Transcript

00:00Russia's war began with the promise of historic triumph. Kyiv would fall. Ukraine would be

00:10denazified. NATO would be pushed back. Russia would rise again as a feared empire. That was

00:19the emotional contract Putin sold to his own people. But four years later, Ukraine still exists.

00:28Russia has lost hundreds of thousands of men, burned through mountains of money and weapons,

00:36endured sanctions, and watched Ukraine drones strike deep inside its own territory.

00:43The great victory never came. So now Putin has a different problem. How to sell failure as victory?

00:53He cannot simply stop and say this was a disaster. He has to persuade ordinary Russians,

00:59the elites around him, the ultra-patriots he himself inflamed, and the veterans he sent to fight

01:08that the outcome they are left with was the goal all along. I am Avira Barry, a writer born in

01:17the Soviet

01:17Union and today I want to show you how the Kremlin may try to manufacture a fake victory out of

01:26a war

01:27that failed to deliver what Putin promised. Here is our roadmap. The victory problem. Why Putin cannot

01:36simply stop simply stop the war? Victory against whom? How the enemy shifts from Ukraine to the

01:43collective West. The ultra-patriot problem. Why yesterday's loudest war supporters may become

01:50tomorrow's extremists. The veteran channel. How the Kremlin will try to absorb soldiers' anger. The peace

01:59war. How relief can be sold as Putin's personal gift. The new victory myth. How scraps of failure

02:10become symbols of greatness. The fight inside the system. Why this exit script reveals weakness, not

02:19confidence. If you'd like to keep getting this kind of deep dive analysis, please subscribe, like, and share.

02:27You can also join my think tank. Support through PayPal or Superthanks or tap Hype Points. And if you are

02:35listening on Spotify, follow the show there too. It really helps. The victory problem.

02:46Putin's problem today is how to stop without admitting what the war has become. According to the Dossier

02:54Center, people inside Russia's presidential administration began working in early 2026 on

03:01what they called an image of victory. Not victory itself, but an image. That word matters. The Kremlin

03:12knows the war is taking its toll. Resources are running down. Drone strikes are reaching deeper into Russian

03:20territory. The country, which already struggled with low birth rates, is losing a lot of young men.

03:27And yet Putin cannot simply go on television and say, we failed. He cannot say that. Because the war was

03:36sold as destiny. The invasion was presented as a historic correction, a rescue mission, a sacred defense of

03:45Russia against NATO, Nazis, and Western decadence. If the ending is only a frozen line plus some occupied

03:54land, then the original promise looks absurd. So, the promise has to be edited. At the beginning,

04:03that promise was huge. Kyiv, the whole of Ukraine, regime change, densification, and new European order.

04:13Russia as the power that tells everyone else where to stand. Now, it is already smaller. Much smaller.

04:23For ordinary Russians, the Kremlin's task is to paint an emotionally compelling picture. People need to feel

04:30that their suffering had meaning. That their sons did not die for a patch of ruined villages no one can

04:38find on a map. That inflation, fear, censorship, and isolation were not the prize of one man's obsession.

04:47For the elites, the task is different. They need proof that Putin still protects the system.

04:54That sanctions and war spending will not swallow everything they build around him. Both of these

05:01boil down to the same thing. Putin must remain the man who was right. That is why the end of

05:09the war,

05:09if it comes, will not be presented as exhaustion. It will be presented as wisdom. Putin knew when to start,

05:18and Putin knew when to stop. He could finish Ukraine off, but took pity on its people. He decided not

05:27to

05:28start a nuclear war that would end the world as we know it. Victory against whom?

05:36If the war was against Ukraine, the result is hard to sell. Ukraine still stands. Zelenskyy remains

05:43president. The Ukrainian army is still fighting, pushing back at the front lines and sending drones

05:50deep into Russian territory. Russia does not fully control even the regions it formally claimed to

05:57annex. So the Kremlin has to move the target. The war was not really against Ukraine, it will say. Ukraine

06:04was only the battlefield. The true enemy was always the collective West. This is a smart trick.

06:14If Russia fought Ukraine and failed to conquer it, the war looks like humiliation. A nuclear empire

06:21failed to crush a neighboring country it once dismissed as artificial. But if Russia fought the West and

06:28survived, then survival itself becomes victory. The CIA reports that one of the main planned

06:36theses is that Putin banned the West. The idea is to say Russia disrupted Western plans to expand and prolong

06:46the

06:46conflict. That solves several propaganda problems at once. First, it explains why the war lasted so long. Russia

06:56Russia was not stuck. Russia was fighting NATO, America and Europe at once. Second, it explains why Russia

07:04suffered so much. Losses are easier to justify if the enemy is much stronger than you. Third, it explains

07:13why their regional goals disappeared. Kiev? No longer necessary. Zelensky staying in power? A detail.

07:23Sanctions? Proof? The West is angry because it lost. We have seen this shift for years. Russian officials and

07:32propagandists kept saying they were not really fighting Ukraine. They were fighting NATO. Ukraine was a puppet,

07:40a proxy, a territory used by others. That line was useful during the war. It will be even more useful

07:48after it because it removes Ukrainian agency. If Ukrainians are real political actors, then Russia's failure is

07:57obvious. Millions of people chose resistance. They defended their country. They paid a terrible price.

08:06But they did not accept Moscow's rule. That fact is unbearable for Putin's story. So Ukraine must be reduced

08:16to a stage and the West must become the real actor. Then the story can be shaped like this. Russia

08:24stood alone.

08:26The West wanted to destroy it. The West poured in weapons, money, sanctions, advisers and propaganda.

08:34And yet Russia forced everyone to negotiate and make peace. This is why negotiations themselves can become

08:43part of the victory myth. They show Putin is still treated as someone the world must speak to. For the

08:51Russian

08:52elite, that matters more than any village in Donetsk region. The elite does not need a clear military victory.

09:01It needs confirmation that the boss still has access to the global table. That he can still bargain with

09:09America. In this script, Ukraine becomes almost invisible. The original promise to remake Ukraine quietly

09:19disappears. Instead, the audience receives a larger, vaguer victory. Russia resisted the West and remained

09:29standing. The ultra-patriot problem

09:34For years, Russian state television, telegram channels, military bloggers, war correspondents and

09:41patriotic influencers pushed the country deeper into the war mood. They demanded more strikes on Ukraine.

09:49More men mobilized. Stricter punishments for deserters and traitors. More blood. At the time,

09:58this was useful. The Kremlin needed an angry public choir that could shame doubters, attack liberals,

10:06insult anyone calling for peace, and make cruelty sound like moral strength. But if the war has to be

10:15frozen, this same crowd becomes dangerous. The Kremlin's political managers understand this problem.

10:23In their internal plan, the Z community is treated as one of the hardest audiences to manage.

10:31These people looked forward to a total victory. A crushed Ukraine, a frightened West, and Russia that

10:40finally returned as empire. Now, they will have to applaud a much smaller result.

10:47The Kremlin's new line would sound something like this. True patriots know when to stop. A real

10:57statesman does not chase illusions. Russia has already achieved their main goals. To keep going

11:04endlessly would be irresponsible. It could turn into a Peric victory. Very elegant. Yesterday,

11:12the person calling for peace was a traitor. Tomorrow, the person demanding endless war may become a

11:21reckless extremist. The state decides which emotion is patriotic today. And the people who cannot switch

11:29fast enough will discover a painful truth. Loyalty to war is not the same as loyalty to Putin.

11:35This is already visible. Pro-war bloggers have become more difficult for the Kremlin to manage because

11:43they sometimes criticize corruption, military incompetence, bad command, lack of supplies,

11:50and the gap between television triumph and battlefield reality. Russia's pro-war loyalists are already facing

11:58repression, including foreign agent labels and extremism charges. Wall correspondents and Z-writers organize

12:07audiences, collect aid, and speak about real problems in the army. And that's exactly what the Kremlin fears.

12:15Independent influence. If controlled Z-bloggers switch to the new line, they will say Putin saved Russia

12:23from exhaustion. Putin took what was necessary. Putin forced the West to negotiate. Putin knows better

12:30than so-far warriors who never carried responsibility for the whole country. If uncontrolled voices refuse,

12:38the state has tools. And television will explain that they are not patriots, but hysterics who want to

12:47bleed Russia dry. Veterans are harder to manage than bloggers because they have a different kind of

12:59authority. They were there. They actually fought this war. The regime cannot simply dismiss veterans as

13:08hysterical or cowardly. Instead, it has to honor them, contain them, and redirect them.

13:16The first step will be to separate good and bad veterans. Good veteran accepts the official victory,

13:26joins a party, studies in a state program, opens a business, rebuilds occupied territories,

13:33appears on television, speaks to school children, buys a Russian car, thanks the state, and becomes proof

13:42that sacrifice was rewarded. Bad veteran drinks, commits crimes, complains too loudly, refuses to adjust,

13:53exposes military failures, or asks why the war ended with so little to show. Russia already has the model

14:02for this. Putin launched the Time of Heroes program to turn selected war participants into a new loyal elite.

14:11Officially, this is about giving veterans a path into public service. Politically, it is about sorting

14:18ambitious veterans and attaching them to the system before they become an independent force. That is the

14:27key word selected. Not every veteran becomes elite. Most do not. Most will return to their ordinary lives.

14:38But these display cases will become a message the Kremlin sends to the other veterans. Behave correctly

14:45and there is a place for you. Behave incorrectly and you will be along with your wounds. The piece 4

14:57After years of war, even fear gets tired. People may not protest openly, but exhaustion seeps into daily life.

15:07Prices rise. Men vanish into contracts. Artists leave. Friends stop talking.

15:15Airports close. Drones fly into Russian regions. Television screams every night that Russia is

15:22winning, but somehow the victory never arrives. At some point, the public needs relief. The Kremlin

15:30understands this. The planned post-war package includes not only victory slogans, but a whole emotional reset.

15:39Roundtables about normalization. Actions about Russia's positive future after victory. Stories of business

15:48success under sanctions. A controlled war in culture. The return of political humor. Rehabilitation of the

15:56word peace. Possibly even a limited amnesty. This sounds like softening, but in truth it is sedation.

16:07The goal is to make society grateful to the same system that froze it. Think of the emotional arc.

16:16First, the state says war is necessary. Then, sacrifice is sacred. Then, doubt is betrayal. Then,

16:26when the war becomes too heavy, the same state says, now we give you peace. Peace arrives as the ruler's

16:34gift. And after that, the regime can loosen a few screws. Maybe some jokes return. Maybe a few cultural

16:43figures are allowed back as long as they repent or keep quiet. Maybe the state allow movies, books,

16:50concerts, concerts, and entertainment to breathe a little more. But a controlled war is not spring.

16:57The regime can melt one corner and freeze another. It will probably keep political prisoners in jail,

17:06keep occupied territories militarized, and hold the foreign agent label ready. Broad liberalization

17:13remains unlikely. The new victory myth

17:19A real victory does not need much explanation. If Ukraine had surrendered and Russia had installed

17:27its own government in Kyiv, the story would have ridden itself. But that is not what happened.

17:35So, the Kremlin needs a new victory myth made from pieces. According to this year's center,

17:41the planned package includes territorial gains, natural resources, the land corridor to Crimea,

17:48the Azov Sea coast, new Russian-speaking citizens, and the idea that the war cleaned Russia of

17:55treacherous elites. Notice the method. Every failure gets wrapped in a symbol.

18:03Take the Azov Sea coast. In the new story, it can be presented as a future resort zone.

18:11Beaches, hotels, families, children, summer. That image is meant to erase the road that led there.

18:19The same happens with the land corridor to Crimea. In military terms, it is one of Russia's few

18:26concrete gains. In propaganda terms, it becomes proof of destiny. Crimea is now connected. History is

18:35restored. The map has been corrected. And once the map is corrected, the dead can be folded into the

18:45story. They did not die because Putin miscalculated. They died so Russia could stand tall. They died so

18:54their grandchildren could live under a peaceful sky. That phrase, peaceful sky, is one of the most

19:03cynical phrases in Russian political language. It turns the deaths of soldiers into a debt the

19:10living must repay with silence. The planned narrative still includes the idea that Ukraine will stop

19:16existing within 10 to 15 years. This is useful because it moves victory into the future. If victory

19:25is not visible today, it can always be promised for tomorrow. This is an old trick. The Soviet Union

19:33promised communism in the future. Putin's Russia promises historical justice in the future. The

19:42emotional mechanism is the same. Suffer now and the many will arrive later. The fight inside the system

19:55The leaked presentation does not mean Putin has made a final decision. It shows that political managers

20:03inside the presidential administration are preparing for a possible settlement. Pause or freeze. And

20:11thinking about how to sell it. That distinction matters. In Russia, the political managers and the security

20:20men often want the same final result – regime survival. But they prefer different tools. The political

20:28managers believe society can be staged. They think in narratives, audiences, emotional arcs and slogans.

20:37For them, the country is a theater. The security men prefer simpler tools – pressure, criminal cases,

20:47labels, surveillance, prison. One group says, let's persuade people that this ending is victory. The other says,

20:56if they don't accept it, make them afraid to argue. That's how they work together. And the timing makes

21:06sense. By May 2026, diplomacy around the war was no longer frozen in the same way. A three-day ceasefire

21:14from

21:15May 9 to 11 was announced, with a planned exchange of 1,000 prisoners from each side. At the same

21:24time,

21:25talks remained difficult, especially over territorial demands and the Donetsk region. So there is movement,

21:33but not resolution. The economy also adds pressure. There is a strain in regional budgets, with Russia's

21:41combined regional deficit expected to rise in 2026 as war-related payments to volunteers and families are

21:50waiting on local finances. The federal budget deficit could widen sharply if oil revenues decline.

21:58Ukraine-drone attacks have already forced Russia to cut oil output. This is the background to the exit

22:07script. Enough pressure that the Kremlin has to ask. If we need to stop or freeze this war, how do

22:15we keep

22:16the system from seeing it as weakness? The real audience for their narrative is not you or me. Not even

22:25the average Russian viewer eating dinner in front of the television. The most important audience is the

22:32hierarchy itself. Governors, ministers, propagandists, security officers, oligarchs, party managers,

22:41regional bosses, and military commanders. They need to believe that Putin can still turn events into

22:48order. Because if they stop believing that, the system begins to wobble. Before you go,

22:55I want to ask you something personal. Have you ever watched a leader, a company, or even a family member

23:03shrink their original promise and then insist they had achieved exactly what they meant to do all along?

23:12If this video helped you understand Russia more clearly, please like, subscribe, and share it with one

23:20person who is curious about how authoritarian systems really work. And if you want to keep this channel

23:27independent, you can join my think tank, leave us super thanks, support via paypal, or tap high points

23:35to help this episode travel further. And for those listening on Spotify, follow the show

23:42so you don't miss the next one. Thank you for watching. See you next time.

24:13See you next time.

Category

Transcript

Comments

Recommended